For many students in this year’s graduating class at Elida High School, commencement marked the end of the beginning as they go out into the world.
“This year we’re graduating about 160 students...obviously there’s a lot of different variety of the students that we’re seeing leave Elida High School this year from military to entering the workforce and those that are going to college…” said Elida High School Principal Darren Sharp.
It was a bittersweet occasion for students at Sunday’s commencement exercises as the student body has had a trying year, dealing with the death of two students in an accident on Elida Road.
“This year kind of gone through a lot of different things this year both personally, at the high school we’ve had a lot of things that impacted our students, right away at the beginning of the year, throughout the year...There’s been a lot of ups and downs but by all means today is about celebrating the great things and graduation is one of those great milestones that students are definitely looking forward to and starting their next journey,” added Sharp.
This year’s commencement speaker is Jane Butler Phillips, a 1973 graduate of Elida High School and she has a connection with WLIO TV.
“It was wonderful. I ran studio camera for the news. We did commercials and I ran camera for Easter Straker,” said Phillips.
Phillips career has taken her to Los Angeles where she worked as an editor and engineer for the NBC affiliate.
Her message for students….
“I would say my number one message is don’t live in fear. The world is so exciting and you have no idea what you could possibly do so live your life with no fear because you don’t want to look back on your life and go ‘I should have’,” added Phillips.
