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We're a small K-8 school - 130 kids, give or take, more like a really big
family -  and we usually graduate 8-10 kids per year (many of whom will be
going to different high schools in the fall), so we're very much into
tradition. The last two weeks of school, tables are set up outside the
office and on them, each eighth grader's family places a tri-fold board
(like science  fair boards, you know?) covered with pictures of the graduate
from birth to the present, and centered with a one-page biography written by
the graduate's parents. Some are serious, some are funny, all bring tears to
your eyes, especially the ones that over the years have included pix of
deceased siblings or parents. Teachers and students cruise the halls looking
at the pictures and tearing up as they realize that these kids are going
away and they may never see some of them again.

This tradition started in our church, which does the same thing on the first
Sunday after high school graduations in the area, as each family of a
graduating senior gets a whole or half table (depending on the number of
kids graduating that year) to set up a display of pictures, trophies,
certificates, scrapbooks, autographed footballs, and so on. The displays
also make an appearance at that family's graduation party.

Our eighth graders are then sent off in grand style at a semi-formal banquet
graduation ceremony to which all families and students are invited (it's a
pay-per-plate affair, but people who want to be there just to see the
ceremony can come after the meal), at which the displays are set up again
for the enjoyment of all the visiting families. The grads sit together at a
head table, where their gifts from teachers and classmates (pens, little gag
fits, bookmarks, small gift books, and so on) are arranged at each plate,
and tons of pix are taken.

A class video made by one of the parents is usually shown, made up of still
pix borrowed from parents and classmates, bits of field trip videos and
holiday performances and sporting events, overlaid with music popular with
that class. Each grad gets a copy of it, one of their most treasured gifts.

The evening always ends with the class being timed as they come around the
table and arrange themselves in alphabetical order for the last time, in
order to go forward and receive their diploma from the school board
president and a hug from the principal. This always makes everyone laugh,
since they do it so fast, having practiced for so many years together. It's
always a funny/sad/nostalgic night.

At some point in the evening, the class president and VP present the
principal with a class gift for the school, paid for with some of the money
each class starts raising in sixth grade, for their eighth grade trip (They
do car washes, hot dog lunch sales, babysitting nights, and so on, so each
child's trip is paid for by the time they graduate. Trips have included
Cedar Point, MI dunes, skiing, and a trip to Chicago, depending on the
class's drive, creativity, and work ethics, since they must raise the money,
plan the trip, and make all the arrangements, backed up by watchful
parents.Gifts have included books to the library, a picnic table for the
teachers, and sports equipment.)

Then, as a last act, the eighth graders are driven to the school the night
before the last day by a couple of cooperative (and chaperoning) parents, to
decorate the school grounds as a going away gift. They TP the bushes, put up
funny signs, and chalk messages on the sidewalks to the kids they leave
behind; the seventh graders then clean it up the next day, knowing that
their time is coming....

I'm tearing up just thinking about it.

Betty Winslow, Media Center Director
BGCA
Bowling Green, OH
bgcalib@wcnet.org

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