As the 2021 school year is quickly coming to an end, the commencement speakers tryouts were held on May 13, with Ms. Marcia Anderson, Ms. Holly Jeska, Ms. Jessica Wagner, Mr. Kory Kath and Mrs. Dawn Tuchtenhagen were on the decision board this year. Their final decisions were announced on Friday, May 14 as Wilo Omot and Megan Copeland to be the two commencement speakers for 2021. 

Senior Wilo Omot is involved in student council, DIG, mixed roots, manages boys baseball and football, marching band, concert band and concert choir. Omot initially decided to try out for this speaking position because of a meeting that she attended with Mr. Kory Kath where he talked about finding ways to encourage students to try out. Omot is looking forward to sharing her message of hope to the senior class. Omot said, “My message is just to have hope in all the things that we’ve done, and with that hope we can achieve so many things in life.” Omot’s message is directed towards seniors and having resilience through the crazy year that this has been.

Senior Megan Copeland is involved in speech, younglife and her church youth group. Copeland initially tried out for the speech because she loves public speaking. Copeland said, “I think sharing messages with people and speaking out is so important. Your voice can take you really far in life.” Copeland is looking forward to sharing her message with the rest of the senior class and hopes that everyone will really find meaning from it and remember, long after graduation. 

The  graduation ceremony will take place on the football field for the first time since the 1980’s. Commencement is scheduled to be on Sunday, June 6 at 2:00 p.m. However, in case of poor weather, the ceremony will be postponed until Monday, June 7 at the same time. Mr. Kath said, “The goal this year was to make sure the senior class would be able to be together for graduation and I think we’ve worked really hard to make that happen. So I think we’ve definitely hit that goal of having the senior class all together for this ceremony.”At first there was a set limit on the number of guests a student was allowed to bring. Now, because of the recent mask/social distancing updates, there is no limit on the number of guests that are able to attend.