By JANET HART LEONARD
From the Heart
When Pomp and Circumstance meets Saturday in the Park …
Thursday night’s graduation didn’t look like a “normal” graduation. It’s been so long since anything was normal that I forget some of the normalcies of normal.
Our family met in the parking lot of Noblesville East Middle School to decorate the truck for our Senior Abby Baker. We piled four generations into my son’s truck and found ourselves winding in a 90-minute parade through the parking lot of Noblesville High School.
I had been so disappointed that Abby couldn’t have a normal graduation.
You all know that normal. Getting dressed up to sit on the hard wooden bleachers in a crowded gymnasium hearing hundreds of names being called while only listening for one.
But that is the way graduations have always been done. Always. It’s tradition.
The pandemic changed that. Noblesville did their best to figure out a way to celebrate their Seniors.
And boy, did they hit it out of the ballpark – or rather, the school parking lot.
As we wound around the lanes of the parking lot, hundreds of teachers from all Noblesville Schools cheered the seniors who, along with many parents, had decorated their cars and trucks in amazing fashion.
They called them by name. They had cowbells and signs and balloons and T-shirts telling where they taught. They remembered their students and they celebrated them.
The band played “Pomp and Circumstance” while a few teachers sang in another band … “Saturday in the Park,” along with other classics. It was amazingly awesome.
As I looked out from my back row seat, while holding my seven-month-old great-grandson, Tiberius, I wondered if those teachers knew the impact they had on those seniors. Why? Because I still remember the names of the teachers that had such an impact on me, some 47 years ago.
Purvis. Swank. Dellinger. Gerard. Jacobi. Dudgeon. Harber. Emmert. Fleming. McFarland. Kennedy. Beardshear.
Names that taught us and sent us out into the world, only to learn we were taught well. We were taught not just subjects but how to enjoy learning. That is the gift that a true teacher has to offer.
So as Abby walked across the stage as a third generation of Noblesville graduates, I imagined in about 18 years, if I’m still around, I’ll be watching a fourth generation Miller walk across the stage.
Keep up the good work, Noblesville Schools. We have Tiberius and his brother Jason coming up. Who knows how many more as our family has a tradition not to venture far from home?
And about the tradition of graduation in the crowded gymnasium on hard bleachers with hundreds of students waiting for their name to be called?
There is a lot to be said about starting new traditions. I vote for the one that was started this year with a little Pomp and Circumstance and Thursday in the Parking Lot.