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“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, as read by Natalie Ann Hall, West Rowan High School senior class president
Tina Parker stood nearly lost in a sea of light blue just before West Rowan High School’s commencement exercises Thursday at Catawba College.
Leaning on black crutches, the result of cerebral palsy, the diminutive honor graduate bubbled at the prospect of getting her diploma and going to college.
“It’s about time. Twelve years of hard work has paid off,” she said, looking up and smiling. “I’m really nervous, but I know I’ll get through it.”
Parker and 219 other West Rowan seniors received the fruits of their academic labors at 2 p.m. in Catawba’s Keppel Auditorium.
For the second year, all five of Rowan-Salisbury’s high schools are holding graduation ceremonies at Catawba College.
North Rowan’s 123 seniors marched into Keppel at 8 p.m. last night, and East Rowan’s 247 seniors graduated at 10 a.m. today.
South Rowan, with a senior class of 293, enters Keppel Auditorium at 5 p.m. today, and Salisbury’s 165 graduates will begin their ceremony at 8 p.m.
In Kannapolis, A.L. Brown’s 193 graduates received diplomas Thursday evening.
West Rowan’s latest contribution to the future gathered in the Crystal Lounge, adjacent to the auditorium, as they awaited word to begin their march into the auditorium. Looking ready to get on their way, they mingled and posed for pictures.
Shortly before the march into Keppel, they pulled together tightly in the center of the room to listen to West Rowan Principal Henry Kluttz.
He told them how proud he is of them, how many good things he’d heard about them and how all the sitting and standing they were about to do might make them feel like they were in church.
Then the graduates formed loose rows and awaited the word to walk into pomp, circumstance and post-graduation life.
“I’m kind of nervous,” said Lashunda Davis, who plans to major in business administration and psychology at Catawba. “I hope I don’t fall.”
Parents weaved in and out of the ranks of grinning graduates, still taking pictures, minutes before their procession began.
And then it was time. As the seniors filed out of the lounge on their way to the auditorium, a West Rowan staff member checked each gown: “... zipped up ... zipped up ... zipped up ...”
A host of people ensured that the seniors’ graduation day had as few wrinkles as possible.
Last year, school system officials moved all graduations to Keppel because of security concerns. Salisbury and West Rowan had already held commencement there in years past.
In the wake of school shootings at Columbine High in Littleton, Colo., and threats of violence locally, officials felt the need for tighter security.
Security this year is evident, with at least half a dozen Salisbury Police Department cruisers lining the curb outside Keppel and plainclothes officers here and there inside on Thursday.
But security is not the concern it was last year, said Johnny Brown, Rowan-Salisbury safety administrator, so guests “won’t see the same show of force.”
As at last year’s graduations, the seniors each received tickets — five apiece, on average — for guests to sit in Keppel Auditorium.
And again this year, video screens in the Crystal Lounge and adjacent Heidrick Little Theatre display the graduation for people without tickets and those who don’t want to sit in Keppel.
Parking lot renovation next to the auditorium isn’t taking many parking spaces, said Matthew Sullivan, Rowan-Salisbury’s director of high school curriculum.
But parking is still “the one thing we were kind of concerned about,” he said. So the school system runs non-stop shuttle service to other parking lots around the campus.
“What you find is most people find a place to park and they walk out here,” he said.“Still, these are their kids they’re coming to see graduate, and we want to make it as nice as possible.”
Sullivan said more time to plan, and more people planning and working, has made this year’s graduation run more smoothly.
And inside cavernous Keppel, where flashes popped and cameras videotaped, the seniors in light blue turned their attention beyond graduation day:
n To Robbie Corker, a West Rowan senior who died Oct. 26 from illness brought on by a brain tumor.
“We lost Robby last October,” Kluttz said. “But he will always be a part of this class, the class of 2000.”
n To the future. Academic speaker Jonathan Williams urged them to “dare to be dreamers and dream to be daring.”
n And to what will carry them into that future, what lies within them, as told by Tina Parker when she stood in that blue sea before the march.
“I just do the best I can,” she said. “Doing that has gotten me this far.”
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