Graduation 2021, live and in person


Pipestone Area Schools’ Senior Class Committee members include (l-to-r) Oliva Lapthorn, Jessalyn Reinert, Skylar Mendro, Will Rops, Caiden Smidt, McKenzie Dulas and MacKenzie Manderscheid. The committee members helped plan certain elements of this year’s graduation, which is Sunday, May 16, and recently shared some of their thoughts on the end of one chapter of their lives and the beginning of the next. K. Kuphal

After holding last year’s graduation ceremony outdoors at Hiawatha Pageant Park with a limited number of people there at a time due to the pandemic, this year’s Pipestone Area Schools (PAS) graduation ceremony on Sunday, May 16 will be at 2 p.m. in the high school gymnasium as usual, albeit with a few precautions.
Attendance, for example, will be limited with each student alloted six tickets for guests. Students are expected to receive their tickets on Friday, May 14.
The doors will open for the ceremony at 1:30 p.m. and guests will have assigned seating to keep people in family groups. Ushers will be available to help people find their seats. Guests will enter through one door of the gymnasium and exit through another at the end.
Programs for the ceremony will be laid out for guests to pick up rather than being handed out. Masks are required and will be available for those who do not have one and hand sanitizer will be available.
During the ceremony, the graduates will be seated at least three feet apart, in accordance with Minnesota Department of Health recommendations. The band and choir will be in the gymnasium only when they perform and guests will be asked to remain seated until the graduates leave the gymnasium and go outside to form a reception line in front of the high school.
The graduation ceremony will be live streamed on language arts teacher Lauren Olson’s Youtube channel. The link to watch the live stream will be released on the PAS Facebook page, sent out via the school app and emailed to those on the school district’s email list on Sunday.
The ceremony
As usual, the senior class committee has helped plan certain parts of graduation and events leading up to it. This year’s senior class committee includes Caiden Smidt, Jessa Reinert, McKenzie Dulas, Skylar Mendro, MacKenzie Manderscheid, Olivia Lapthorn and Will Rops.
The committee helped plan the senior breakfast held on Thursday morning, May 6 and the baccalaureate program on Wednesday, May 12, and came up with options for the class flower, color and quote. Committee members said they chose four possible quotes and three possible color schemes and flowers in the fall. The entire senior class then voted on their favorite choice from among those options late last year.
The class colors are lavender, gold and light gray and the class flower is a black rose. The committee members said they chose the color options based on colors that went well together and their flower options. They liked the black rose because it was different.
“Usually, the last couple of years people have been doing white roses, so we wanted to be a little bit different,” Lapthorn said.
The chosen quote is, “Chase your dreams, but always know the road that leads you home,” by Tim McGraw. Committee members said they thought the quote was a good fit for an agriculture-based community.
That theme of heading off to experience new things and yet always remember home is also featured in the speech Lapthorn will deliver during the graduation ceremony. Lapthorn said her speech draws on the circle of life from the “Lion King.”
“I chose that theme because there are a lot of things in the movie that relate to real life,” she said. “You’re going to have to watch out for people like Scar and the hyenas, and in the movie, Simba leaves Pride Rock and makes friends with Timon and Pumbaa, but then in the end he always comes back home.”
Other members of the senior class who will speak during the ceremony include Jori Strasser and Jacey Miller. Kathy Baker, administrative assistant and senior class committee advisor, said Strasser’s speech draws on themes from “High School Musical” that are applicable to real life. Senior class committee members said Miller’s is a short farewell type of speech.
The theme of always remembering home, is also carried out in the song the PAS band and choir will perform during the graduation ceremony, “Homeward Bound,” by Marta Keen. Baker said the band and choir have not previously performed together during a graduation ceremony.
The end of one chapter and the beginning of another
As they near the end of their high school days, members of the senior class committee described their senior year, with all the limitations and changes due to the pandemic, as follows: “Oof,” “not good,” “difficult,” “frustrating,” “hectic” and “emotional.”
Because of the pandemic, the seniors spent most of the school year in a hybrid learning model, with some days at school and some days learning from home. When they were at school, they were around a limited number of other students as a result of a new block schedule that included four classes a day instead of seven. Several members of the senior class also chose to do distance learning all year. The students said that made it difficult to connect.
“I don’t feel like our class is as close as it could be,” Reinert said.
There were also quarantines and changing guidelines to deal with.
“It was just really frustrating, especially at the beginning of the year there were so many restrictions, especially with sports,” Lapthorn said. “There are a lot of sports that get to do a lot more than the fall sports did.”
“It’s just felt like we missed a lot of things,” Rops said.
The school was also a construction site all year with the building of the new elementary school. Smidt said it all added up to “just too much change for one year.”
With that year now over, the students, while feeling some sadness about leaving the familiarity of home, family and friends behind, are looking forward to graduation and what lies ahead. That includes new experiences, new places, new people, new opportunities and following their dreams.
“It feels like you have a period of time to be stress free and you can move onto the next chapter of your life,” Smidt said. “You get new opportunities to meet new people.”
The committee members have big plans for their futures.
Smidt plans to go to the University of North Dakota to earn a degree in biomedical engineering and participate in the pre-medicine program. She hopes to become a doctor or biomedical engineer.
Reinert plans to attend South Dakota State University to major in exercise science. She hopes to become a physical therapist.
Dulas plans to attend Mankato State University to major in medical laboratory sciences. She hopes to become a laboratory scientist.
Mendro plans to attend Southwest Minnesota State University to study elementary education. She plans to become a teacher.
Manderscheid plans to attend the University of South Carolina to major in biochemistry. She hopes to become a forensic scientist.
Lapthorn plans to attend Grand Canyon University with a double major in marketing and advertising, and entrepreneurship. She hopes to work for a clothing brand.
Rops plans to attend Minnesota State University Moorhead and become a school councilor.
Few of the students said they planned to return to this area to live after college, but — once again tapping into the theme of remembering where home is — they said they will, of course, to return to the area to visit family and home.