A night of firsts: Eight graduate at inaugural TLCA ceremony in Abilene

Success and failure were topics Friday, but success easily won the night.

Texas Leadership Charter Academy-Abilene held its first graduation, with eight seniors taking diplomas at an emotional ceremony at nearby Trinity Baptist Church. TLCA acquired a former YMCA two blocks west on State Street to accommodate plans to provide a high school education.

The Class of '23 is Kaiden Castillo, Lazarus Harrison, Luis Mancha, Gabriel Mendoza, Brionna Miller, Trinity Moeller, Zaidryn Moreno Nobles and Yasmin Wright.

Miller gave the school's first valedictory address, with Nobles welcoming attendees with his salutatory speech.

Castillo was the first to be awarded a diploma. All smiles after the 40-minute ceremony, he admitted that he was nervous being the first to walk across the sanctuary stage.

"It feels good," he said, between summons for photos afterward.

Family members and friends brought balloons and candy bouquets, with one large contingent wearing matching blue shirts to honor their graduate.

As if graduation wasn't momentous enough, the eight seniors took roses and presented those to a loved one after guest speaker Cassie Britt spoke. That inspired hugs and tears.

"We're family," said Dr. Dan Dukes, the former Abilene ISD administrator who now is chief academic officer for the TLCA system. He noted the first TLCA graduation was 14 years in San Angelo, also with eight graduates.

Nobles, who will be attending Angelo State University with plans to major in math, was the first to speak.

"I am filled with gratitude and overwhelmed by the sense of accomplishment," he said. The Class of 2023 made it through a high school education filled with ups and downs, he said. That, of course, included working through a pandemic.

"We have had successes and setbacks, joys and sorrows but through it all we learned valuable lessons about ourselves and each other," he said.

Next was Miller, who already has attained dual-credit successes at Texas State Technical College and Cisco and Howard community colleges, and has plans to attend Texas Tech with a goal of becoming a nurse. She came to TLCA as a fifth-grader in 2015, the first year for the Abilene campus.

"Our class united into a family," she said. A group that supported each other, especially during a health crisis.

"Good or bad, long or short, I will always remember this place," she said. "These last four years have been an obstacle for many of us but the fact that you are here today is a testament that you are resilient and have a great future to look forward to.

"Graduating is a starting point."

Britt, a former teacher at TLCA who had these students as fifth- and sixth-graders, was their choice as speaker.

She recalled her classes reading "The Narnia Chronicles: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," a trip to the state capital and writing the students summer letters.

Britt said she believed that she would be a career teacher but in 2021 she "found herself restless for something else."

She viewed that, she said, as some sort of failure on her part. Teaching is such an important job.

In reality, Britt did not fail, but she experienced that emotion.

"You will experience moments of failure, but use those as steppingstones on the path to success," she said.

Failure doesn't have to have the final word.

She quoted Einstein, who said: "If you've never failed, you've never tried anything new."

Oprah Winfrey failed to get her TV career going. Author J.K. Rowling initially failed to get her story about a young wizard picked up by a publisher, she said.

Is there an Einstein, Winfrey or Rowling among the eight young men and women seated across from her tonight?

"Don't ever let a failure keep you down," said Britt, who today works for Directors Investment Group as a software trainer.

Failure, for one spring Friday evening, was not present. Well, except for the one graduate with a full head of curly hair who failed to keep his mortar board on his head. He did his best, laughing. He solved the problem by holding it in place.

After diplomas were given, the seniors tossed those weird-looking hats that you wear just a few times in your life.

After the names of the eight students were announced after they were seated to begin the ceremony, Principal Gretchen Reicheneker said "Whenever many of your high school memories begin to fade, that's ultimately how you measure your time spent here, not in periods or semesters or years but the friendships that you made and the times that you shared."

Miller said their paths may never cross again, but her classmates will meet in their memory of being in the first graduating class at TLCA.

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Night of firsts: Eight graduate at inaugural TLCA ceremony in Abilene