The graduating classes of 2020 at high schools across the province, country and North America sure got a bum deal this year.
This time of the year typically brings about all sorts of graduation events and ceremonies, but this little thing called COVID-19 had to go ahead and create a global viral pandemic that eventually brought the hammer down on all of that, didn’t it?
Doesn’t this virus understand the costs associated with graduation? Or the work done by students, parents, teachers, and volunteers? Or the dreams that all the girls had of wearing pretty dresses and doing up their hair in such-and-such a way?
Seriously, this damn virus is downright rude when you really stop to break it down.
The last few months of my own Grade 12 year were not without their own ‘unique’ hiccups, to say the least. For starters, and I’ve mentioned this before in this space, but Outlook High School having a bomb threat called in was definitely a first for all of us, staff included. It happened on a Friday afternoon in the spring, I want to say late April or early May. One of the reasons why I remember it being on a Friday was because a handful of students were excitedly pointing out that “The weekend is starting early!”
We were all asked to make our way over to the rink, where our teachers briefed us on what had happened and eventually assured us that everything was okay. In short, there appeared to be no bomb. I had made sure to grab my video camera before my friends and I walked over to the rink to document the ordeal. Man, I wish I could find that tape…
To this day I remain convinced that the person who called in the bomb threat was a fellow student who was pulling an outlandish, though profoundly serious and dangerous prank. Maybe there was a test he/she was trying to avoid, maybe there was an assignment due he/she wasn’t finish, or maybe it was just something “fun” to do on a Friday afternoon. (in this case, I use ‘fun’ in the deplorable and cruel sense, of course)
If I remember correctly, my own mother was the first parent to arrive on the scene as all of us students were standing around outside the rink. Of course, I took it as an opportunity to start my weekend earlier than the rest of my peers and climbed into Mom’s minivan. And of course, I took some teasing and ribbing from some of my peers as they called out, “Hey Derek, your mommy’s here to come get you!” Joke’s on the rest of you, I got to go home before the rest of you!
By the time we came back to school on Monday morning, the whole thing was pretty much forgotten. It hasn’t occurred to me until now that I work at the local newspaper in the community of which this incident happened 16 years ago, and that we have a whole wall of archives at our fingertips. Hmmm, guess I’ll do some digging.
The other bizarre occurrence near the end of my high school career was the abrupt and rather ‘hush-hush’ firing of our principal, Robert Gallagher. I remember seeing Mr. G on a Friday afternoon as my friends and I were putting up the new message on the school’s ‘Coming Events’ sign (we were his designated ‘sign guys’), and then by Monday morning, POOF, it was like he was never there at all. No official explanation given, no correspondence related to any of our parents to my understanding, and teachers were expected not to talk about it with students. It was all very bizarre and handled very unprofessionally, a stance I took back then and maintain today. As the end of the year approached, it was even said that Mr. G was not allowed to attend our grad ceremonies, or he would be arrested on-site. During a conversation years later with a fellow ‘Grad of ‘04’ about the situation, she mentioned to me that the school division threatened to hold back her diploma if she didn’t drop the topic.
Sometimes you can’t make up the crazy stuff that happens in a small town.
Now, we have a viral pandemic stopping the standard celebrations for our departing classes of 2020.
At least, that’s what’s happening in larger urban areas. Out here in “the sticks”, small towns and villages are finding creative ways to help mark the occasion. This coming Saturday, I’m attending a community parade in Dinsmore that will spotlight the departing students of Dinsmore Composite School, and the Saturday after that, a similar event will be taking place at my former stomping grounds, Outlook High School.
It’s great to see such ingenuity and out-of-the-box thinking when it comes to tackling problems. Sometimes you just have to leave it to small towns to get the job done in one way or another.
Even though select graduation celebrations in 2020 will be, well, different to say the least, I hope that students take it all in and live in the moment. Pandemic or not, the world is now yours and we all hope you make the best of the opportunities that lay ahead in your future.
For this week, that’s been the Ruttle Report.
