Fist pumps and goose bumps: Lebanon High School Class of 2025 graduates in high spirits
Friday night was an occasion for fist pumps and confetti at Lebanon High School.
Class president Joe Susong led the 149th graduating Lebanon High School class into the gymnasium.
Friends and family in the bleachers cheered and whistled. They waved bouquets of flowers, baby photos, and signs attached to sticks at their children who stood in black robes on the edge of adulthood.
The seniors searched for familiar faces and flashed the peace sign, pumped their fists, pointed, and grinned from ear to ear. They hugged one another and waited for the band to complete 'Pomp and Circumstance.'
Students who will serve in the armed forces after graduation led the standing-room-only crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance and basked in a spontaneous standing ovation from their peers.
Olivia Follmar encouraged her class not to ask God for easy lives but to become stronger men and women, before she led them in prayer.
Principal Frank Meyer began with a Mark Twain quote, 'I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.'
'Your schooling ends tonight, but your education is just beginning,' he said. He encouraged them to take their hunger to keep learning and to be brave enough to fall short.
'Fail at something important and figure out how to do it again, better,' he said.
Valedictorian Taylor O'Brien plans to attend Notre Dame University in the fall. He had a high school grade point average of 4.6, is an Eagle Scout, an academic all-star, and lettered four years in swimming, among other accomplishments.
O'Brien said he doesn't know what he wants to be when he grows up and assumed that most of his classmates don't know either.
'That's okay,' he told them.
'Not knowing creates the possibility for opportunity,' he said. 'The best way to predict the future is to create it.'
Salutatorian Claire Boling urged classmates to enjoy the time they have left together this summer and to forge friendships and make memories with a new set of people as they move forward.
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