June was a month of farewells for the staff and students of the Holy Trinity Academy and Frank Maddock High School.
The students who are moving on to tackle post-secondary are the first who have experienced the entirety of the pandemic during their schooling. For these students, the pandemic began in Grade 10, and there were still some limitations in place in their first semester of Grade 12.
Still, despite the challenges, many students rose to the occasion and graduated with honours. Two of those students were also gifted with the honour of being a valedictorian for their graduating class.
Randelle Spence, the valedictorian for HTA, says she was surprised to be chosen. “There’s a lot of people in my grade who do have high grades,” says Spence.
She says school has always been something she excelled at, but she says this last year was more challenging for her. Spence says she’s always worked at getting good grades, but she feels she was also gifted at it.
Spence found out she was the valedictorian about two weeks before graduation. Despite the short amount of time to get her speech done, she says she wasn’t too nervous about it.
“I think it was in the back of my mind for the whole year. I was thinking, ‘If I was valedictorian, what would I say?’,” she says.
It also helped that she enjoys writing, so she was excited to put pen to paper. Up on the stage, though, was a bit different. Spence says she always thinks she’s fine to speak to the public or do a presentation, but when she goes up on stage she realizes she’s not.
“Whenever I have to stand up and do something in front of a bunch of people… I shake, my hands sweat, and my legs will shake,” she says.
Spence says she used her speech to relate back to things the class had experienced during high school. She says because of the smaller class size in HTA, the group was quite close. “That’s what I enjoy the most about school, my classmates,” she says.
“They’re just a riot. They’re just such a good time.”
Going forward, Spence is going to university in Calgary where she plans to take her Bachelor’s in Business.
For FMHS, Rylee Rogers was the top student. She found out just over a week before Graduation.
“At first I was like, ‘Hey, that’s pretty cool!’ and then I was like, ‘Oh no, I have to write a speech,’” says Rogers.
She says she struggled with figuring out where to start with the speech, but once she began to write, the rest flowed easily for her.
Rogers says her graduating class has many different types of students. “They’re all very unique and they’ve got some big plans for the future. I’m excited to see where they go.”
She says the goal of her speech was to inspire her classmates. With the pandemic, Rogers says many students had challenges keeping their grades at the place they wanted them to be. Then, when they came back, they had to readjust again.
“I wanted to inspire them to take what they learned through that experience and apply that in the future,” says Rogers. “I also wanted to remind them that they can do great things and to remember to have some fun in the pursuit of their dreams.”
Rogers plans are to go to university and get a Bachelor’s in Agriculture before going on to become a vet.
