A former local pastor gave a video commencement speech Sunday at Calvary Lutheran High School's graduation, telling graduating seniors to be thankful and to fight for their dreams.
The school was one of the first area schools so far to hold in-person graduation ceremonies amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The commencement speaker, the Rev. Joshua Knippa, however, gave his speech via video. He had served at Faith Lutheran Church and at Calvary before taking a position as pastor of a church in Texas earlier this year. Before he accepted the position, seniors had picked him as their commencement speaker.
He told the graduates to be thankful, because they have family and friends who care about them along with a school that will always be a part of their family.
"Most importantly, you have the Heavenly Father, who owns the galaxies, and they are nothing to him compared to his love for you," said Knippa, known as "the voice of the Lions" as the announcer for school sports events.
He also told the 24 of 26 graduates in attendance that life doesn't always go as planned, they must fight for their dreams.
"And when circumstances change and life gets more difficult than you thought it would be, fight for your dreams," he said. "And when awful people are awful and they try to use you and change you and crush you, fight for your dreams. And when you are faced with a whole institutional apparatus that tries to warp what you believe, tries to stop you for what you are called to do, fight for your dreams. Fight for your dreams, because if you fight for your dreams, your dreams will fight for you.
Class salutatorian Abby Klatt told her class not to take anything for granted and enjoy every moment of life.
For its Bible verse, the class chose Romans 12:18: "If it is possible as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone."
"We didn't get to end our high school career the way we imagined, but we have to live at peace with our unique situation. And I truly believe we made the best of our moments here at Calvary," she said.
Valedictorian Sarah Johnson described the class as "the class of COVID-19," telling the crowd that the school ending wasn't what anyone expected.
"We had so many things that were supposed to create lifetime memories ripped away from us," she said. "No senior prom, no spring sports seasons or activities" and a modified graduation. "But we made it. Not the way we wanted to, but we did."
The pandemic caused several changes to the ceremony. Class members, for example, walked on stage to get their diplomas, but they didn't do traditional handshakes with school administrators. And the diplomas weren't handed to the graduates. They were placed on a table for the graduates to pick up themselves.
Despite the downsides caused by the pandemic, Johnson said, there were upsides. Among them: Students got to sleep in later and didn't have to adhere to the school dress code.
She said the class learned to adapt, and to keep up with each other through social media and other means while distance learning continued amid quarantines and stay-at-home orders.
Johnson earned a 3.99 grade point average out of a possible 4.0. She plans to attend Central Methodist University in Fayette, possibly studying pre-med. She hopes to be a pediatrician one day.
"Calvary has taught us to stand firm in our faith and not to conform to the beliefs of the world," she said in her speech. "Calvary has also built us to be Christian leaders."