JUNE 4, 2009 ISSUE
Watauga High Graduates Class of 2009 Saturday
From left: Valedictorian Alexandra Bauer, Salutatorian Win Matsuda, Student Body President Will Barbour and Senior Class President Meghan Combs are ready for their big day.
It’s finally here. After 13 years of public education, 350 Watauga High School seniors will be graduating this Saturday, June 6, at 11:00 a.m.
The Class of 2009 will be the first to walk across the Holmes Convocation Center’s stage as part of a morning commencement ceremony. The event is usually scheduled for a Friday evening.
“It’s the first time, in my tenure here, that commencement has ever been done during the day,” said Jane Rogers, guidance counselor for the senior class. “We feel that it might add a little dignity and take on more meaning, the meaning that a ceremony like this is supposed to have.”
This year’s ceremony will feature speeches from Valedictorian Alexandra Bauer, Salutatorian Win Matsuda, Senior Class President Meghan Combs and Student Body President Will Barbour.
According to Rogers, the day before commencement, June 5, will be the party day for the senior class.
“That way, graduation won’t be the preliminary to the party, as it was before,” Rogers said. “It will be the grand finale of all the graduation activities.”
It will also allow relatives of the senior class a chance to spend time with their favorite student after the ceremony. This is a chance that has not been available in the past because of the all the things that students were committed to after commencement.
But the day before will still be a very full day. The morning is reserved for the Senior Breakfast, to be held at ASU’s new cafeteria that has replaced the old Wellborn Dining Hall. Breakfast will take place at 12:30 p.m. Following that the students must rush to the Holmes Center to Practice for Saturday’s ceremony. Practice will last until around 3:30 p.m. and then the party begins at 4:00 p.m.
Instead of hosting Project Graduation this year, which was cut due to funding issues, Watauga High will be hosting what they are calling Seniorfest. This party, which will last from 4:00 to 7:30 p.m., is a drug- and alcohol-free party with games, music and door prizes.
Seniors will have the chance to win various prizes, one of which is a 42-inch flat screen television with surround sound included, donated by the family of the late Norman Cheek, owner of Toyota of Boone and the man who created Project Graduation 20 years ago to help keep kids safe on graduation night.
There will also be a scholarship awarded to one student in Cheek’s honor, to be announced at Seniorfest. Cheek’s daughter pulled the scholarship together.
Overall, Rogers feels, the senior class is ready for something they have earned.
“This is a very bright class,” said Rogers. “Some years the students never really come together as a class, but I believe that this year they really have done that.”
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