Many years ago I stood on a porch with my good friend Sawyer Cairns. On a warm summer’s day, we would fire paint balls into the nearby forest, blissfully unaware of what the future may hold. As time slipped through our fingers, the future became the present, and soon, I found myself standing among the beaming community of Clearwater as they cheered on the 2023 Grads.
It brought a smile to my face to see Sawyer, a kid I befriended on a school bus one fall, stand proudly in cap and gown as one of two Valedictorians.
As the 2023 grads proudly marched onto the stage my mind flashed with memories of them doing the craziest things on the elementary school playground: hyperactive and dreaming. The funny thing is, they are still doing crazy things, still hyperactive, still dreaming. However, for a couple of years those dreams seemed like they would be crushed in the tight grip of the Covid-19 pandemic. Suddenly, emerging from the rubble of toilet paper and masks, were the shining lights of their hopes and dreams, as seen on their smiling faces this June .
Future nurses, computer programmers, race car drivers, and pastors found themselves in a very different world, but they still pressed onward. Trustee Shelley Sim proudly explained to the audience that the Grad Class of 2023 was the last class to experience Clearwater secondary school, before Covid.
It could not have been stressed enough during the ceremonies, that just because a student learns and grows up in a small town, it doesn’t make them anything less than anybody else. The grad class of 2023 proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt; with students heading to universities, or even the students wanting to take a moment and then continue forging a path forward.
The world changed, and the class of 2023 will change the world again.
