THRALL – Friends and relatives filled Tiger Stadium May 26 to watch 50 Thrall seniors take their final steps as high school students. As the graduates walked across the stage, Principal Nicole Tindol announced where each one’s path would lead next.
STEM careers rank high in graduates’ plans, with many heading off to college to major in fields including petroleum engineering, marine biology and nursing.
Some graduates are going into vocational training, including a future chef, an aesthetician and a fire fighter. Others had already completed training and were ready to join the workforce and start careers in fields including heating and cooling (HVAC) or welding.
Many students made choices that would potentially take them far from home, including outof- state colleges and one graduate who is spending the next year traveling in Europe before deciding on a career.
Salutatorian Mikayla Martin and valedictorian Kerrigan Hooker gave speeches focusing on classmates remembering their Thrall roots as they walk bravely into the future. Teacher Korie Dutshmann gave a commencement speech that reflected those sentiments.
The class of 2023 funded a Coach Rick Porter Scholarship of $500 for a 2024 graduating student as a departing gift.
During an evening where class memories were recounted and tearful goodbyes were made, graduating student Kennedy Yanez summed up the emotional event by performing a song she wrote for her classmates, called “Stay”.
“Never thought I’d see the day I’d leave behind the place I was raised every day for 12 long years. Gone in a flash it just disappeared. But life is about changing, love and creating memories we’ll never forget.” “I always said I want to leave this place, that nothing here could ever make me stay, now here I am about to graduate and leave the only life I’ve every known, place I’ve had my highs and lows, by tomorrow I’ll be on my way.
Kind of makes me want to stay.”
- Kennedy Yanez
Photos by Edie Zuvanich
