(Riverton, WY) Staff, families, and friends gathered for a special ceremony held for six graduates of Frontier Academy on Thursday evening at the Fremont County School District Central Office Building.
Those receiving their diplomas were: Alexis Shania Rose Behan, Dante Marie Buck, Cordell Lee Grove, Cameron Miles Hollaway, Kailee Jo Lynch, and Kirk Thomas Wadley.
Before the presentation of the diplomas, FCSD #25 Superintendent JoAnne Andre-Flanagan addressed the graduates:
“I’d like to congratulate you all on behalf of the school district; this is really a special night. A lot of times we have these graduations one at a time, and it’s really lovely to see so many of you sitting here in front of us today. It feels a lot like a graduating class.
I always like to listen to the words that are spoken by our graduates as well as by the staff members who get up and speak on their behalf. There are always words that stand out to me that I like to repeat back; I heard so many wonderful things about this graduating crew here tonight. I heard words like inspiring, goal-oriented, work ethic, direct, honest, helpful, independent, grace, heart, trustworthy, maturity…so many amazing words, and I hope you heard those. I hope you heard yourself described that way because it’s been a hard path for many of you to get here, and maybe you doubted yourself during that time, maybe have not heard people say these words about you before. It’s really important to hear those [words] and carry them in your heart as you move forward.”
“There are a lot of different reasons why kids choose Frontier, and we are honored to be able to offer that choice for kids in our district. The one thing I always like for graduates to take away is that you now know that you can do hard things. You’ve had hard things and you’ve done them, and you sit here tonight because you’ve gotten yourself through hard things. I always say, look around, because you didn’t have to do it by yourself, and I know a lot of times it feels really lonely when you’re going through hard things, and you don’t know that you can do it and you don’t know that there are people around you. But look here tonight…look at all the people that showed up, look at your classmates.”
“Life is not always easy. It’s beautiful, it’s wonderful, but it throws curve balls at you, and it’s not always easy. So it’s important for you, in this moment, to recognize the fact that you have pushed yourself through those hard moments as young adults. You are young. Most of us, even if we’ve had curve balls in our lives, have not had them until we were much older. We’re more mature; we’re ready to handle those. You had to handle them young…and you did.”
“So reflect in that moment, because you’ll have other hard times, and now you know you can do those things; you don’t have to do them by yourself; you have people around you. But you will have to make the choice…just like you have done over the last few years to get this work done and sit here tonight, so congratulations!”