I was honored to have the opportunity to speak at my Graduation ceremony on July 27th, 2020 at the Cobb Galleria Center along with Brooke Henry. In addition, I was awarded the AJC Cup from Principal Dr. Shaw.
Graduates, Parents, Staff, and Guests, this ceremony is the accumulation of four months of dedicated hard work. For the parents on the committee, it has been a rollercoaster of leaps forward and setbacks. But from the beginning, they were determined not to give up. They have made every effort to guarantee that we would graduate together.
Though our unique circumstances may seem to be a misfortune, in a different light overcoming this adversity is an opportunity. We weren’t the class that had to have the rest of our senior year canceled; we were the class that got to experience first-hand one of the biggest events in modern world history. Unlike the graduates before us, we get to be known as the generation of young adults that will draw upon what we have learned about the struggles of two-thousand twenty and use it to make a positive change. That is a one-of-a-kind honor I believe we can all be proud of.
After speaking, rather, texting with numerous graduates in June who sent in videos explaining what a Graduation Ceremony meant to them, we were surprised that everyone’s dream for graduation was beautifully diverse and exceptional in its own way. Among many different reasons, some of our class are first-generation graduates, wanted to see our friends one last time, or we’re simply here to make our parents proud. In any case, it became clear that this Graduation Ceremony is what we needed to celebrate our accomplishments.
Now that we are gathered here today, we can conclude that despite all of our differences, it is always possible to work together even in the most unusual conditions to achieve a common goal.
Without the leadership and initiative of our graduation committee, especially OUR moms, and Mr. Michael Schoppenhorst, there would be no graduation. They were so much more than just parent volunteers. Planning and executing this themselves became a full-time job. Thank you so much for your hard work throughout this process to enable us to have this milestone experience.
Dr. Shaw, thank you for being supportive and honest with us from the very beginning. We appreciate everything you have done for our school and our class for the past three years, for coming to our various club and sporting events and competitions, and for always striving to make things right. Roswell staff, we are honored to have you here with us today. We would like to thank you for your initiative to learn how to use zoom this year. You stuck it out until the end, and even checked in on us to make sure we were doing alright. Mrs. Stuart, we know you always wanted us to have this moment, and we are so grateful that you are joining us this afternoon for our celebration.
It is absolutely incredible how people can come together to support each other. This INDEED was a Community Event. We were overwhelmed by the generosity of members in our local business community. Please consider patronizing these local businesses as a thank you: Roof Depot, Rock ‘N’ Taco, JH Design Studio, Flippin’ Pizza, Rodney Toon Keller Williams Realtor, Honest-1 Auto Care, Bruster’s Real Ice Cream, Mom’s Table, and Scooter’s Coffee. In addition, most may not know that a single anonymous Roswell resident knew how important graduating together was to us and donated $5000 to this event. Sir, we are very grateful. After all of the business, family, student, and other contributions, over $23,000 was raised. Finally, the people here at Cobb Galleria Centre and Shepard Audio Visual have been so accommodating and gracious by covering remaining expenses. They have done a miraculous job handling this production. This afternoon, the Roswell Class of 2020 will get to walk across the stage because of the generous support of our community. Thanks to you, we are graduating together.