By Evan Kaye, Current Staff Writer
After 4 years at River Hill, the class of 2021 will hold graduation ceremonies on Friday, June 4. The event will take place at the Merriweather Post Pavilion at 3:00 PM.
Each senior will now be allowed to have six tickets, a number that rose from just two tickets after Maryland eased COVID-19 restrictions. Some guests will view the ceremony from the pavilion at Merriweather, while others will be seated on the lawn. Fortunately for those who won’t be in physical attendance, the ceremony will be available for viewing online.
Senior Faith Meininger believes “it has definitely been tough to graduate in a year” where she was “away from a lot of friends,” but experienced that as the year progressed, she was able to be around her friends more often. On the first day of March, some students returned to the classroom for hybrid learning, and in early February, sports in Howard County started up again.
Because of the pandemic, Mrs. Allshouse thinks “graduation rehearsal will be mass chaos as friends see each other in person for the first time in over a year.”
Faith “was really excited when [she] heard there would be an in-person graduation to have final closure with high school and be surrounded by all the other graduates.” Overwhelmingly, every great movie has a great ending. The seniors will have a chance to have their great ending with this year’s in-person graduation, giving them a sense of closure for their high school years.
The graduation ceremony could be the last time many seniors cross paths with one another, but it also may be the last time for graduating students to see their teachers. Mrs. Allshouse found that “one of the sweetest things about this year has been the number of emails from students who have taken it upon themselves to reach out and check in.”
For more than 300 students at River Hill, the end of a chapter will be marked on June 4th, but the question is: how will they write the rest of the book?