More than 1,000 of Arlington’s high schoolers said goodbye to school days Monday, in a flurry of graduation ceremonies for all three county high schools.
Students, teachers and parents spread out across the Washington region for the end-of-the-year ritual on June 17, celebrating the graduation of the class of 2002. While the locales were different, the feelings were much the same at all three schools, as 18- and 19-year-olds passed into adulthood, out of school and into the real world.
Yorktown held its graduation at Constitution Hall in Washington, DC, at 2 p.m., and Wakefield and Washington-Lee held simultaneous celebrations at 8 p.m., on their football fields.
<b>AT ALL THREE,</b> student speakers offered in-jokes, adages and looks back.
"I urge you to always remember our time in elementary school," Steven Jones, Washington-Lee’s valedictory speaker, told the crowd there. "And remember the times in middle school…. And never forget that time in high school when, on a Saturday night and a Sunday morning, we fulfilled our unofficial prom theme by having the best prom ever."
Before Wakefield’s ceremony, Amanda Eckerson, one of two valedictory speakers, said she would be telling her classmates to use graduation as a time to savor their accomplishments. "It’s about pausing," she said. "So often we don’t get the chance to do that."
Earlier in the day, in Constitution Hall, graduating Yorktown senior Katherine Spatz offered a speech in rhyme celebrating individual class accomplishments, before yielding the stage to her classmate Spiros Komis.
He offered graduates a different choice than most speeches: forget about achievements. "High school is so overly dominated by perceived achievement," he said. "When I graduated from kindergarten, I felt as I do today: untouchable."
But in coming years, he said, high school diplomas would appear worthless, he said, as graduates’ spirits ebbed. At that point, he said, simple humanity would matter more than achievements: "When we fall, I hope one of us is there to pick the other up."
<b>MEANWHILE, FAMILY AND FRIENDS</b> overlooking the ceremonies waited restlessly for their particular newly minted man or woman to receive a diploma.
"This is our first grandchild to graduate. It’s a thrill," said Margaret Pettingill of Sterling, at Constitution Hall with her husband Stuart to watch grandson Neal Samuels Pettingill on his walk across the stage.
Their grandson will head to Virginia Commonwealth University next September, she said, and the whole family would see much less of him. But Pettingill said that was fine.
"We won’t miss him – we’re proud of him," she said. "We went through this with our own children."
That was a sentiment common among parents, said TJ Holt, before the ceremony. Holt and his twin brother JT Holt were joining the Marines, leaving for boot camp over the summer, and his parents were looking forward to an empty nest. "They’re ready for us to go," TJ Holt said.
Being ready doesn’t diminish the impact of graduation, Nick Stern said. Stern, a senior at Yorktown, will spend the summer working as a computer programmer before heading to Christopher Newport College in the fall.
His parents, too, have been waiting for him to leave home, he said. "They’ve been preparing for it, but they tell you that today they’re going to cry," he said. "You can’t prepare for this."
Von Hanton, waiting for his daughter Shanna Ford to graduate from Washington-Lee, said that’s because most parents have already noticed that their children have become adults.
"She’s a very mature young woman," he said of his daughter. "High school has a way of doing that to you."
<b>WAKEFIELD HAD AN</b> extra graduate on Monday night: principal Marie Shiels-Djouadi retires at the end of this school year.
"When you come up here tonight, I graduate with you," she told seniors, "and I share with you in some respects your apprehension. Like you, I’m not sure where I will be in a year, or in 10 years."
She planned to come back, and hoped to see some of 2002’s graduates as well, she said. But they were off to a good start in their new lives, she said, with graduates of Wakefield earning more than $1 million in scholarships, heading for colleges and military academies ranging from Alaska to Florida, from Barnard to Yale.
The same was true across Arlington, as graduates get ready for the military, for the Air Force Academy, for jobs or for universities in or outside Virginia. Some were looking forward to leaving their parents behind, while still not quite comfortable with the idea of living alone.
"I’m happy to leave home," said Luke Colella, a senior at Wakefield, heading for Virginia Commonwealth University in the fall, where he will major in drama. Still, he said, "I’m comforted that it’s only a two-hour bus ride away."