|
|
|
Photo by Elliot J. Sutherland/The Ottawa Herald
Brianne Roberts hugs family members Saturday morning during West Franklin High School’s graduation ceremony.
|
WEST FRANKLIN: Musical ‘speech’ for first graduation
By CLEON RICKEL, Herald Senior Writer
|
|
POMONA — It was a first for the first graduating class of West Franklin High School — it might have even been a first for any graduating class.
The valedictorian is named. The valedictorian stands up and bows and gets applause or whips out a folded paper and gives a speech exhorting fellow classmates to stride confidently into the future.
After being named West Franklin valedictorian, Brianne Roberts stepped down the stairs of the podium, walked to a piano and took up the violin and bow sitting on top, briefly tuned it, turned and walked to a microphone and faced the audience of Saturday morning’s commencement.
Without a word, she began playing a haunting rendition of the spare and mournful “Ashokan Farewell.” The instrument piece written by folk musician Jay Ungar, in which one violin plays unaccompanied for most of it, is indelibly known to the world as the poignant theme of PBS’s historical series “The Civil War” by Ken Burns.
“I play the violin a lot better than I give speeches,” Roberts said later. “It’s beautiful.
“That’s one I’ve been playing. And it’s about farewell.”
Roberts plans to attend Kansas State University in the fall.
For other students, it was probably less than about farewell as much as it was savoring being the first graduating class at West Franklin, which is a combination of the former Pomona and Williamsburg high schools.
In his speech as salutatorian, Cody Campfield said it represented an opportunity that the class faced and handled.
“We’re proud to be the first graduating class of West Franklin High School,” he said.
“It was fabulous,” Kayelee Williams said. The combination worked out, she said.
“It’s pretty cool,” Ray Harms said.
And in the future, being in the first graduating class will be a distinction that will ensure students will be remembered for years to come, Matt Chanay said.
|
|
