New London graduates learn how to adapt

NEW LONDON — Seniors went out in style Sunday afternoon as the New London High School class of 2020 graduated with a ceremony in the school's parking lot. "I thought it went extremely well. ... Better than anyone could have expected," Superintendent Brad Romano said. "We met all of the guidelines and met all of the plans we submitted to the health department." Each of the 85 graduates was permitted one car (with as many people they wanted in the car) in the ceremony, which started at the football field. The cars were divided into two groups — each entering the parking lot separately from opposite ends. After the speeches, each car drove up to the stage with the graduate getting out and receiving a diploma. When it was over all of the cars paraded out of the parking lot. New London was the last high school in Huron County to graduate. "Two reasons we held off," Romano said. "Knowing the unpredictability of the weather in the early spring we were hoping for the best and it paid off for an outside event. The second reason was we were hoping for some changes in the guidelines (for a traditional ceremony) and as we all know that definitely wasn't the case. "We just felt to do the right kind of program for our kids we needed some time to plan it out and not just rush to put something together." Co-valedictorians this year are Todd Byrd Jr. and Erin Conrad. Salutatorian was Curtis Joppeck. Byrd received his associate's degree from Lorain County Community College along with his high school diploma. "The theme of the graduation at the college was one of resilience, which I would like to talk about for a minute," Byrd said. "According to Google, resilience is defined as the capacity to recover quickly from difficulty or toughness. I really couldn't think of a better word for our class of 2020 here as well as the collective class of 2020 across the world. Sometimes simply getting work done and doing it right consistently takes resilience. Every day there is something new to learn, something else to do. "With sports, band and other extracurriculars outside of school, it takes many adaptations to work through the week. Then there are much more gradual adaptations such at the integration of technology in the classroom. In the span of the last 12 or so years, our class has gone from taking all of the tests on pencil and paper, to having carts of Chromebooks on hand for when we need them, to the use of programs such as Aleks and Quizlet and Kahoot for our homework and study tools, to the point where every student has their own personal Chromebook to carry around and do work on, to finally doing literally all work online for the past couple months do to the current COVID-19. "And through all this change we grew stronger, we were persistent, and we are here today, graduating and taking the next steps into our lives." Conrad talked about a senior year to remember. "This year has been bananas," she said. "That seems like the only fitting adjective to use. A wrench was thrown into the timeline, the routine of our lives was altered, and the world was faced with an array of troubling problems and an acute sense of global anxiety." The key, Conrad said, is to focus on the positive. "We have been given perspective. We each have an intimate view of how delicate life truly is and how important little things in life are to us, such as shaking hands with another (person), seeing the full smiling face of a stranger, or getting together with a group of friends at a fast-food restaurant. We have learned to hold things dear to us a little closer than we did before. We have face adversity on all scales and have learned to adapt. 2020 gave the world the most sour lemons and we have seen in a long time and told us to make lemonade. And, like the stubborn creatures that human beings are, we made lemonade, and we made it sweet. "We sweetened it with drive-by senior parades, Zoom calls with grandparents, adopting new hobbies, dog-walking soaring to an all-time high, creating quarantine proms and decorating the sidewalks with colorful chalk art. "If there is one thing we have learned through this life experience, it is that the only thing stronger than fear is hope." Romano said it was a job well done by everybody. "I think it went extremely well from all of the feedback I got," he said. (Principal) Eric Yetter and senior class advisers Bobbi Hudberg and Vicki Trask put in a lot of hours of planning to pull it off. "Our biggest takeaway is an outside venue is something we can do in the future. This whole spring there are a lot of things we can take forward with us."