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EDITORIAL: Graduation days looks a lot different

The Class of 2020 will look back at this time one day with strange stories to tell
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High school graduation is that special time for everyone when lifelong memories are formed.

For graduates on Vancouver Island and across the country, the memories of 2020 are going to be quite different due to COVID-19.

Creativity has become the key word to allow some form of normalcy in the graduation process. Fortunately in B.C., the restrictions on the numbers allowed in a crowd were recently elevated to 50 and that’s made a difference in the planning process. Chemainus Secondary has approximately 40 graduates this year so it’s also meant a later prom event can be planned at least for class members.

It was looking for a while like the whole thing might be in jeopardy with no prom or ceremony being held. Classes were out of session from spring break in early March until June 1 and that’s valuable lost time that students obviously cannot get back.

At this point, the students will be grateful for anything close to the usual ceremonial events taking place. Like everyone in grad classes before them, all they want is that moment when they pass from one stage of life into another and to enjoy the proceedings dressed in their finery for a prom.

Some grads are surely wondering why this had to happen to them at this time. No one could have foreseen we’d have such a profound worldwide epidemic affecting all aspects of our lives.

It’s truly just the bad luck of the draw. Wrong place in the wrong year, if you will.

But optimism abounds with the grads and nothing can spoil their moment.

One thing they can say for sure in the future, ‘I was in that graduation class when the coronavirus pandemic hit….’

That’ll be quite the conversation for them to have with their grandchildren one day.

For now, you can bet grads are going to enjoy their time in the spotlight even more – no matter how diminished it is compared to normal and make the most of the experience as they venture into what will undoubtedly be many more bumps along the road in the future, but an abundance of memories coming their way to cherish as well.



Don Bodger

About the Author: Don Bodger

I've been a part of the newspaper industry since 1980 when I began on a part-time basis covering sports for the Ladysmith-Chemainus Chronicle.
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