19-05-2025
Virginia Tech celebrates 2025 spring commencement
BLACKSBURG, Va. (WFXR) – It's the day college students dream of. On graduation Day at Virginia Tech, thousands of new Hokie alumni and their families celebrated.
It started bright and early Friday morning in Lane Stadium, as students made their way onto the field. Once inside, they had mixed feelings knowing a journey everyone started together four years ago was coming to an end.
'We're kind of sad,' Frankie Klein, one graduating senior said. 'We've already cried a little bit today and we're probably going to cry a little bit more today because Virginia Tech is my home.'
'It's an understatement when people say this is home,' Nicholas Rizzi, another graduating senior said. 'It really feels like it, especially from someone not from here, it's a crazy feeling.'
'Just the overwhelming support from everybody in the stands,' Landon Nye, a third graduating senior, said. 'These are all our families and our best friends and just seeing everyone that we know, and love graduate together, it's unreal.'
It was a similar feeling for some of the family members in the stands.
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'We feel like we're a part of the Virginia Tech family as well,' Tyra Epps, the mother of graduating senior Sydney Epps, said. 'We've been coming to family and friends, to homecomings, for football games and then now for commencement, so it's really been super exciting.'
Students also got the coveted opportunity to move their tassels from one side to the other, and listen to one more rendition of Enter Sandman by Metallica.
They also figured out who was inside the Hokie bird costume.
'When they found out, a few of them were like, 'Oh of course,' but a couple of them were shocked,' Marisa Goodwin, one of the former Hokie mascots, said. 'There's people who aren't in my immediate circle that some of them were super shocked and some of them expected it.'
Some students are traveling across the country as part of their next step in life, but they know a part of them will always belong in Blacksburg, at Virginia Tech.
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