PHOTO GALLERY: Grafton High’s Class of 2020 gets the graduation they wanted
The first disease Grafton High School’s Class of 2020 beat was EEE. Bourne by mosquitos fond of snacking at dusk — prime time for football game under the lights — it screwed up fall football schedules until frost’s arrival.
The Class of 2020 got through it. It persevered, hitting senior year milestones — college acceptances, concerts, competitions, signing on to play on college teams.
And then came March 13, the day no one realized their days in the halls of Grafton High School would come to an early end. The COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools across the country and “distance-learning” became the norm. Spring sports were canceled, as were the spring musical, prom, college shirt day, and all the last times they had thought they’d face together as a class.
Sunday night, they had one last time together — on a hot July night, they socially distanced across the Grafton High School football field for a better-late-than-never graduation.
“We found a way to hold this graduation and if that’s not a testimony to our perseverance, I don’t know what is,” Class President Ian Choi said.
It even fit into Valedictorian Matthew LeClair’s personal goal of getting out of his comfort zone. In his speech, he talked about jumping into band with little musical experience and taking on long-distance running. He encouraged his fellow classmates to take similar leaps into the unknown.
“Education is the great equalizer,” he said.
Outdoors on the football field, most students wore identical class-branded face masks along with their green and white robes, pulling at both to temporarily find relief from the heat. Behind them, their parents gathered in sets of three, resigned to the fact that their children’s graduation pictures would only include half their faces.
On stage, diplomas were laid out in a row of tables. Instead of receiving them from the hand of Principal Jim Pignataro, a group of athletes would take the stage as a table emptied of diplomas, removing it while pushing the next diploma table forward. The handshake from Superintendent of Schools Jay Cummings was reduced to a congratulations as the students exited the stage.
“The majority of us are here to gather together,” student speaker Colin Wood said. “Even if we’re 12 feet apart.”
