BSHS graduates bid farewell in evening ceremony

By SALLY BOYD

Gazette Neigh­bors Editor

life@gazettepublishingco.com

The 163 mem­bers of Belle­vue Senior High School’s Class of 2012, with arms entwined around each other, swayed gen­tly to and fro to the strains of the BSHS Alma Mater Sat­ur­day evening in BAF Sta­dium under cool blue skies and wispy white clouds, their red and white com­mence­ment gowns flut­ter­ing in the winds, as they com­pleted their jour­ney for the final time as a group.

Despite the winds, which occa­sion­ally blew off a few of the grad­u­ates’ mor­tar boards, and a few dif­fi­cul­ties with the sound sys­tem — per­haps caused by the per­sis­tent winds — the 137th com­mence­ment exer­cises came off with­out a major hitch. There were a few tears of sad­ness, many tears of joy, and whoops and hollers from the large crowd who watched with pride as their spe­cial grad­u­ates crossed the dais to receive his or her diploma.

Five sets of twins were mem­bers of the class — Aaron and Trevor Beck, Jef­frey and Julie Edwards, Anson and Win­ston Hupp, Nathan and Zachary Irons, and Jacob and Joshua Lukas — giv­ing those fam­i­lies dou­ble rea­son to celebrate.

Fol­low­ing a pre­lude of music, per­formed by mem­bers of the BSHS band, the grad­u­ates marched into the sta­dium through a cor­don of fac­ulty dressed in the robes and hoods sig­ni­fy­ing their advanced degrees. Led by their class offi­cers, Pres­i­dent Bren­dan Adkin­son, Vice Pres­i­dent Alivia Ball, Sec­re­tary Nicole Price and Trea­surer Eliot Brubaker, the 163 grad­u­ates entered the sta­dium at 7:30 p.m., mak­ing their way to their seats on the track in front of the home stands packed with fam­ily and friends as the band, led by Wayne McCoy, per­formed the tra­di­tional “Pomp and Circumstance.”

The seniors first faced the crowd, smiles light­ing up as they spot­ted fam­ily and friends in the audi­ence. The Color Guard, com­prised of vet­er­ans from Amer­i­can Legion Post 46, Vet­er­ans of For­eign Wars Post 1238 and the Marine Corps Reserve League, made their entrance to the National Anthem played by the band.

Prin­ci­pal Gor­don Moore, serv­ing as mas­ter of cer­e­monies, thanked the vet­er­ans in the crowd, ask­ing them to stand for recog­ni­tion as he then intro­duced the five grad­u­ates who will be join­ing the mil­i­tary: Ian Hay­ward and Chase Fer­gu­son, U.S. Marine Corps; Danelle Wade and Cody Jones, U.S. Navy; and Matt New­land, U.S. Army.

A spe­cial moment of silence and release of bal­loons was held to honor the mem­ory of class­mates Ernie Gar­cia and Matthew Dav­en­port, both of whom died this past year.

Class Pres­i­dent Bren­dan Adkin­son gave the tra­di­tional class address reflect­ing on the years lead­ing up to grad­u­a­tion, inter­twined with seri­ous insight and humor.

“ It seems like just yes­ter­day we were lit­tle kids begin­ning our first day of school. I am sure many of you can still remem­ber this day. Do you remem­ber arriv­ing at school and enter­ing a large room filled with some of the great­est toys you had ever seen? This sight filled your heart with joy. How­ever, this joy was soon extin­guished by a new word: shar­ing,” he said.

“Grade school flew by and we soon entered junior high. Here, we were faced with a dev­as­tat­ing cat­a­stro­phe: the loss of recess. Yet, this loss was some­what negated by the gift of the locker. This locker soon became filled with all of the junk we couldn’t fit into our room at home…

See the full story in today’s Belle­vue Gazette.

Posted by Becky Brooks on Jun 5 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.