Palo Pinto County Graduation Class of 2020 | Page 12

By Dr. John Kuhn, Superintendent
of Mineral Wells ISD
MINERAL WELLS
The Class of 2020 is unlike any
class ever. Things started out
for them like they do for every
class. They began this year undoubtedly
with a sense of unparalleled excitement:
they posed for pictures in their caps and
gowns, they savored their last pep rallies
and their last Homecoming and their
last Coronation. They looked forward
to being leaders in the halls, leaders on
the fields, Kings and Queens of Coronation,
top dogs, leaders of that world
called high school.
By the time Spring Break rolled
around, it was surely beginning to
dawn on them just how close they were
to finishing high school. And what a
bittersweet thing to contemplate! On
the one hand, they surely daydreamed
about their future: about going off to
college or the military, or maybe getting
a job and getting married. About leaving
not only their school, but moving
away from their home and their parents
and siblings.
Whatever was next for each of
them, by the time Spring Break rolled
around, it was just a couple of months
away. But on the other hand, for all
the excitement of what was to come
for the Class of 2020, there was almost
certainly a bit of sadness in their hearts
for what would be left behind. Friends
and teachers they may never see again.
Activities and clubs and sports that
had grown dear to them, and that, in
many cases, they would leave behind
for good.
Such were surely their thoughts when
Spring Break was upon them. The reality
of their future was inescapable. Since
Kindergarten, their future had been like
a towering skyscraper in the distance;
now they stood in its shadow looking up
at it, and it was bigger and more menacing
than they had realized before.
12 Mineral Wells Graduation 2020
The way we typically deal with
the melancholy of saying good-bye
to thirteen years of school—thirteen
years of relationships and traditions, of
familiar places and familiar faces—is via
a time-honored collection of end-ofschool
rites. We have a Senior night as
each sport wraps up, and these events
get increasingly emotional as fall turns
to spring and spring begins to lean toward
summer. Not only do the students
start to realize the finality of things,
so do their parents. We have banquets
for the organizations that make high
school so meaningful for so many kids,
and at those banquets we recognize
our outgoing students. They are given
plaques and statuettes and scholarships
and their names are engraved in
record books. We honor them before
they leave, and they deserve it They’ve
etched their names into our hearts. We
interrupt a school day and let them
parade up and down the high school
halls in their caps and gowns so the
underclassmen can have something to
look forward to. Sometimes we even let
them wear their caps and gowns up and
down the halls of all of our campuses.
We pose them for a big class picture.
We pass out yearbooks and let them
wander the building getting signatures
from teachers and friends.
These traditions are kind and familiar.
They make the medicine of growing
up and moving on go down a little
easier.
And then, the icing on the cake:
graduation. Or commencement if you
like your language a bit fancier. Graduation
hits the mix just right. There is the
solemnity of the occasion—the band
playing ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ as
the graduates walk in. The administrators
on the stage standing respectfully as
the graduates walk in. The prayers, the
robes, the student speakers, the flags,
the stage, the tears. But then there’s the
light-hearted part of it—kids invariably
trying to cheat the dress code by sneaking
in flip flops instead of dress shoes
under their robes; some knuckleheads
inflating beachballs they slipped in like
contraband and batting them around
the graduate seating area until some
savvy teacher intercepts them and stabs
them with a pencil, with a secret sense of
deep satisfaction; the eternal problems
with the microphone as various orators’
words bounce back from the scoreboard
loudspeakers a half second after they
were uttered, tripping up speaker after
speaker as they try to say their next line.