Superintendent Matthew Cooper predicted the Class of 2021’s graduation would be heavily attended, and it was. Coming off of last year’s more muted, socially distanced ceremony, this year’s celebration was big. With the bleachers full and family and friends sitting on the hills surrounding Raider Stadium, the Class of 2021 was met with deafening cheers and applause throughout graduation Friday night.
HCHS awarded high school diplomas to 450 seniors and the Habersham Success Academy awarded 17.
WATCH THE FULL GRADUATION CEREMONY HERE
Central’s 1996 valedictorian, 2001 Miss Georgia, orthodontist, and this year’s HCHS Lifetime Achievement award recipient Dr. Emily Foster Howell addressed the graduates.
“No one achieved greatness by sitting and waiting on life to happen,” she said. “You have but one life to live, and as you graduate, the world sits at your fingertips. Are you going to make yourself available and willing to go where you’re led? To follow the dreams you hold dear and to make a difference in the world around you? I want to encourage you to do just that.”
Like the class that preceded them, this year’s graduates spent the last part of their high school careers dealing with the uncertainty and disruption of a global pandemic. Administrators gave a nod to the support networks that helped them overcome that and other challenges.
“I am very much aware that the students graduating tonight did not reach this milestone alone,” HCHS Principal Jonathan Stribling said. “The family and friends present tonight who supported our graduates in pursuing their education are certainly our special guests.”
As the graduation ceremony came to a close, the field came alive with celebration. The graduates followed the time-honored traditions of tossing beach balls, popping confetti, and spraying silly string. When the ceremony ended just before 10 p.m., the crowds in the stands followed another tradition and rushed onto John Larry Black Field (something that wasn’t allowed in 2020 due to COVID). The new graduates joyously embraced their family and friends.
Shaondrea Faulkner celebrated graduating with all A’s alongside her mother and aunt, who she says got her to where she is today. Jonathan Holcomb and Samantha Birdsall rushed across the field to each other after Holcomb’s studies at Young Harris had kept them apart for nearly two months.
Students like Josie Gailey, Jose Virgen Ortiz, Lynsey Buckindail, and Madeline Garrison– a quartet of best friends since they met as freshmen at the Ninth Grade Academy– celebrated this major achievement together. Throughout all the trials they’ve experienced over their four years, Gailey tells Now Habersham that “we always come back together.” Now with Virgen Ortiz leaving for Princeton University, their bond will extend those 750 miles between them.
“I am so grateful for the memories we have made at Habersham Central and could not think of a better group to call my friends, my family, and the people I love,” says Valedictorian Amber Wojteczko. “Congratulations, Class of 2021, we made it!”
