With many traditional milestones lost, Bishop Kelly seniors ‘grateful’ for graduation
Instead of hugs and handshakes, there were a lot of long distance fist bumps and high fives at Bishop Kelly High School’s class of 2020 graduation ceremony.
And rather than being handed their diplomas, these 2020 seniors scooped them up on their own.
Otherwise, it was about as traditional as a graduation can get in the midst of a global pandemic. Well, aside from all the masks.
The Catholic high school’s 56th commencement ceremony was pushed back by nearly a month to comply with Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s Idaho Rebounds plan, which didn’t allow gatherings of more than 50 people until the start of Stage 4 on June 13.
But the ceremony Saturday night on the grass at Nick Ysursa Field — where the Knights play football in the fall — still violated Boise Mayor Lauren McLean’s more stringent public health order that prohibits gatherings larger than 250 people.
The 173 graduating seniors were allowed to have six guests each, and attendees were asked to wear masks at least until they were seated in the stands by an usher. About 830 guests returned an RSVP for the event, putting the total in attendance at around 1,000 people. BK also provided a live broadcast online for those who couldn’t or chose not to attend.
Boise-based Central District Health spokesperson Christine Myron said that Bishop Kelly worked closely with the district to formulate the safest plan possible to avoid spreading the coronavirus, but it was “not without risk.” Masked graduates sat 8 feet apart on the field during the ceremony, and families in the stands were seated as far apart as possible, although the stands still looked as crowded as a typical football game.
“We experienced the first pandemic in our school’s history, and with that came a whole new world of online classes. We have clearly surpassed expectations for this challenge, as we are all here today finishing our four-year journey,” said Bishop Kelly valedictorian Lucas Gabrieli during his commencement speech.
“But we could not have accomplished any of these things without the staff at Bishop Kelly. Not only has every one of our teachers, coaches and faculty members fulfilled their roles to the highest level, they have also been exemplary human beings, taking a genuine, consistent and long-lasting interest in us as both students and individuals.”
With so much of the high school experience taken away from students over the last few months, the Bishop Kelly community wanted to find a way to formally honor its 2020 senior class. As commencement speaker Missy Nichols put it, the seniors had already had their “last two months of childhood in high school ripped” from them.
“The hardest part, in my opinion, is that I didn’t know it was the last day when it was the last day,” said Bishop Kelly senior Gabi Souza, who will be attending Notre Dame. “And it’s not that I miss my friends. I’ll see my friends again, but it’s the person I sat next to in stats class that I’ll miss. It’s my bio table group that I didn’t get to say goodbye to. That’s what stings the most is that I never got my proper goodbye with those people that some of them I’ve been going to school with for the past 13 years.”
In a way, Saturday’s “almost traditional graduation ceremony” made up for some of the disappointment of the last few months for a senior class that logged more than 10,000 hours of community service over four years. The 2020 group also was recognized as one of the most academically competitive classes in school history, with 97% going on to college and combining for more than $20 million in merit-based scholarships. Sixty-one students earned a GPA of 4.0 or higher, and, with their high school diplomas now in hand, all 173 graduates have proven they can succeed regardless of the obstacles, global pandemics or earthquakes ahead.
“I didn’t have my hopes set on graduation, because I didn’t want to feel like something else got taken away,” Souza said. “But I’m really, really grateful that BK cares so much about their students that they found it important to do whatever they could for them.”
This story was originally published June 21, 2020 at 12:22 AM.
