PBHS class of 2020 graduates with relentless determination to succeed

The Black River Coliseum fell silent for a moment Tuesday night as Poplar Bluff graduates and families bowed their heads to consider the empty chairs in the room, the graduates who weren’t there and the world.

“I ask that you take a deep breath for those who cannot,” said Dr. Scott Dill, superintendent.

Over 300 seniors ended their high school careers with graduation a month later than originally planned.

Valedictorian Ross Dare classified the graduates as relentless and determined for the challenges they’ve faced during their years in high school.

“On top of what’s typical of graduating students — maintaining passing grades, participating in sports and extra curriculars,” Dare said, “we’ve also had to deal with … unfairly losing the float competition junior year and being the first class to read, and annotate, the entirety of ‘Brave New World.’ Oh, I almost forgot, we also lost our last few months of school and all of the normal senior events because of a global pandemic.

“The reason I say we are relentless is that even in these trying times we’ve been able to bounce back.”

Dare said when the main prom fundraiser struggled, the class worked hard on additional fundraisers to put on “the best junior prom PBHS has ever seen.”

This year, when the pandemic hit and the class realized they may not be able to have events such as the senior banquet, prom and in-person graduation, they were outspoken to “make sure we got what we deserve,” he continued.

“There’s a quote that says ‘failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough,’” Dare said. “Class of 2020, our determination to succeed has been proven time and time again to be strong enough.”

Salutatorian Emily Spencer recognized that those in attendance knew the 2020 news. She decided to reflect back on the lessons learned during high school.

“High school is not perfect and like everything it has it’s ups and downs,” she said. “The most important thing about high school is not so much the academic knowledge, but the lessons that came with it. Throughout my high school career, various people have taught me important values that I will carry with me throughout life.”

These lessons, Spencer said, included the importance of hard work, kindness, respect and looking at both sides of the story.

“These lessons cannot be learned through a book or lecture, these lessons had to be learned through example,” she said. “They will help me out more than anything I could learn through writing notes and taking tests.”

In a similar message to the graduates, Class President Harrison Warren said the most important lesson he learned from high school is perseverance. This lesson came from his mom encouraging him to prove himself.

“My mom looked me in the eyes and told me ‘if you really want to prove yourself, pick yourself up, work hard …’” he said.

“I’m not going to lie and tell you that from this day on nothing bad is going to happen,” Warren said. “Graduating isn’t going to magically fix all of life’s problems. Sometimes you’re going to want to give up … sometimes life sucks, but sometimes it’s awesome.”