SHS sends off Class of 2024 in emotional ceremony
May 25—Somerset High School's Class of 2024 graduation ceremony was moved inside the school's gymnasium due to the threat of heavy rains — but it was inside those walls that the tears from departing Briar Jumpers fell just as heavily.
All but one of the four student speakers on the evening found themselves overcome by emotion during their speeches, and even those performing musical numbers were not immune to the weight of the occasion. Behind every tear, however, was a clear fondness for the school community — the friends, the teachers, and the memories — that they were leaving behind.
Normally, Somerset's commencement is held in the open air at Clark Field, but the threat of bad weather — which didn't arrive until later that evening — meant that the graduating class of 134 students and their families and loved ones packed into the "Briar Patch" and heard Gracie Burgess sing Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know," Matthew Satterly sing and play the guitar on "Rivers and Roads" by The Head and the Heart, science teacher Jason Bridgeman's parody "Hey There, You Seniors" about each year of the class's career, set to the tune of "Hey There Delilah" by Plain White T's.
Four students spoke on the evening, starting with senior class president Reese Blakeman, who declared that he had started writing his graduation speech at the beginning of his high school career but needed his classmates to help him finish it four years later.
"Our lives are consumed with progress; we chase success, money, happiness. We strive for the temporary gratification. We sacrifice the permanent at the altar of the immediate," said Blakeman. "We chase that picture perfect memory, the perfect speech at graduation, the perfect venue, the perfect moment. But these moments quickly fade.
"We are left asking: What's next? What happens in the next moment?" he added. "... I couldn't finish that speech (freshman year). I didn't know what was next. I had nothing to say that truly mattered. My fellow students, my fellow graduates, thank you for showing me what mattered. ... Because of you, I now ask not what is next, but what is now. To live in the moment, because before you know it, that moment is gone."
Student speaker Hana Saich spent time reflecting on the most unusual circumstances which marked the beginning of the Class of 2024's high school journey — the changes resulting from Covid-19.
"We as a class have experienced an impactful historical period," she said. "This period set the course of our futures in high school, and it would be a great disregard to not acknowledge our endurances. ... Where generations before us are akin to pencil and paper, textbooks and whiteboards, or even blackboards, our education became and remains digitized and deadline-oriented. ... Most chose to do remote learning from their homes. Few remained in the classroom, and what did exist of in-person learning was far from what anyone could be expected to adapt to.
"To my fellow members of the Class of '24, I have never felt more inspired by a single group of people," she added. "There is raw, unfiltered for sure, compassion, ambition and beautiful purpose in each of you."
Cameron McCaskill described an inspiring journey that took him from the height of athletic glory on the football field to a crushing low point — and the good that ultimately came out of that experience.
"I'm only 17, not even an adult yet. I don't know much, but I know I'm not young enough to be able to say I haven't gone through struggles. We all have — they just look different," he said. "... Last summer, when I say I felt on top of the world, I mean I felt on top of the world. I was in a bunch of camps and programs, I got closer to my friends, I re-dedicated my life to Christ, football was going well. For once I wasn't just standing on the sidelines. The first game of the season, I scored my first varsity touchdown. Second game of the season, defensive player of the game."
In the third game, tragedy struck when McCaskill tore his ACL and meniscus, and was done for his senior season — that was the last football game he ever played. Even though he was on crutches, he stayed on the sideline and supported his teammates. He also had to choose a class other than Weights after his injury, and discovered Peer Tutoring, which appealed to him as an aspiring math tutor.
"I go into this class thinking, 'You know what, I'm not just going to tutor these kids, but I'm going to leave an impact on them.' I was wrong. I was dead wrong. Because the impact I had on them was nothing compared to the impact they had on me," he said. "On March 26, I had the opportunity to give a speech to them and tell them something I didn't hear as much when I was younger, something that my parents spoke into me. I went around the class and told them individually that they were intelligent, that they were kind, and that I believed in them. The way they lit up when i called their name to tell them something positive about themselves is the type of thing that made me stop a second and think, 'Wow, I did that.' The type of thing that made me feel like maybe getting injured was not so bad, because I wouldn't be here right now if I didn't. ... Behind every stormy night, God has a plan for a brighter day, and that's why I say, learn to dance in the rain."
Jesse Hampton also spoke about his relationship with Christ as part of his speech, as well as his backstory, coming into the Somerset Independent Schools community from elsewhere and getting the most out of his experience at the high school.
"My path to get here was a little bit different than the traditional Hopkins-to-Meece kid," he said. "It all started approximately 1,784 miles away from here, in a little town called Safford, Arizona. ... (During his elementary school years there), we moved, and where did we move? Lincoln County, Ky. Don't ask me why, I don't know, but I'm there now. It's crazy though to think about that I moved across the entire country, almost 2,000 miles, and I ended up exactly where I needed to be, exactly where God had intended for me to be.
"Thank you for accepting this outsider from Science Hill and never thinking twice about it," he added, holding back tears as he spoke. "... My time as a Briar Jumper is time that I feel like was too short. I didn't get the Hopkins (Elementary School) experience. I didn't get the Meece (Middle School) experience. But all I needed was those four years as a Briar Jumper. It's changed my life for the better, and it made me who I am today."
The SHS Class of 2024 saw 11 Carnegie Diploma recipients, having undertaken the school's rigorous dual-credit Carnegie Academy; 26 Scholar Diploma recipients; 26 to graduate Summa Cum Laude, with a 4.0 GPA and a minimum of six dual-credit or Advanced Placement credits; 16 to graduate Magna Cum Lade, with a 3.7 GPA and minimum of four of the above credits; and eight to graduate Cum Laude, with a minimum 3.6 GPA.
The class has eight student-athletes who have committed to competing at the collegiate level. Altogether, the SHS Class of 2024 has been awarded $2,224,384 in academic, athletic, and other scholarships, and will be attending 16 different colleges and universities, and two branches of the U.S. military.
