I must admit I was skeptical. Upon learning about a month ago that Durant and Wilton schools were looking at having a parade of cars to honor their senior classes, I wondered if it was a good idea.
To say 2020 has been an unpredictable year would be an understatement. Remember Y2K? When the calendar was ready to turn to the year 2000, we all wondered around the globe what was going to happen — especially in the technology world as we thought our electronic devices would be unable to decipher the numerics of a new millennium.
Little did we know we were 20 years too early. It was 2020 we should have been worried about, for a multitude of reasons.
Let’s stay with the seniors. We are in the middle of an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic — the global breakout of a new virus that can be deadly. It caused an abrupt halt to normalcy for all of us, including the classes of 2020, all over the nation, who probably each had a hint of “senioritis.”
Yet as quickly as they wanted to be done with school, when it was taken from them, all they wanted was their lives back. And when you’re in high school, roaming those halls is life.
Both Durant and Wilton high schools held grad parades for the seniors. How they got there are two different tales.
In Durant, the parade was held May 17, symbolic in that it was the original date set for commencement. The traditional Wildcat graduation ceremony has been rescheduled to July 12, but a parade of cars was organized separately. It went off without a hitch under the guidance of Principal Joel Diederichs and others. Students followed the rules, drove or rode in their own cars, families stayed relatively to themselves or at least socially distanced (from my vantage point), and it was successful.
It was the first time in a couple months that I had taken my camera to an event for live coverage for the paper. The weather was a bit dreary but the job got done.
We also did some planning on our part. That week, we printed bios of the Durant seniors, along with the final 4-page section of the Wildcat Chronicles — a resurrection of the school’s student newspaper. We provided every senior with a complementary copy on the day of the parade. To toot our own horn for a moment, I took pride in watching Mr. Diederichs hand each senior a copy of their hometown paper, a keepsake I know they’ll treasure.
In Wilton, the vision originally was to hold a virtual graduation ceremony May 17. It was to include a grad parade of cars and students would also be given flash drives with digital versions of various speeches and happenings that would have occurred during commencement.
When presented with the idea, the student body and student council presidents said “No.” They missed their fellow classmates. So did other WHS seniors. They wanted a true ceremony. At that point, Wilton set the July 12 commencement date, knowing it was a gamble. What if social distancing rules are still in effect then? We’ll cross that bridge in a month.
Yet as the weeks went by, coupled with seeing the success of the Durant parade, Wilton students, under the leadership of student council president Taylor Garvin, organized the parade May 31. It too went off without a hitch, and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect.
Again I watched from a vantage point near the school and, from what my eyes saw, onlookers social distanced and the kids had a memorable time.
Side note — We ran Wilton senior bios in the May 21 edition of the Advocate News and each graduate will also receive a complementary copy by commencement in July.
After seeing these parades, of which I admit I was a skeptic, it has left me wanting more. Dare I say the classes of 2020 have started a new tradition? I’d like to see grad parades moving forward in our small towns — even when we get back to “normal.”
