Humboldt Collegiate Institute (HCI) said goodbye to 81 graduates during the high school’s graduation ceremony on June 28.
This included members of the Humboldt Broncos Morgan Gobeil, Jacob Wassermann, and Brody Hinz.
Graduates and teachers reflected on the students’ time at HCI with many teachers, staff, parents, and family members to thank for getting them through their high school years.
Graduate Adam Eichorst touched on that as he welcomed everyone to the ceremony as the class salutatorian.
Eichorst also took the opportunity to thank his fellow classmates for their time together at HCI.
“We have had ups and downs, and recently we fell off a cliff together. Today we still stand here hand in hand, arm in arm, spirit in spirit. No matter what happens after today, remember each other and the good and bad times we have went through.”
Thanks to Stacy Jackson’s intrepid mathematics, the mistress of ceremonies had some statistics for her now former students.
Four years in school has meant 728 days, or 4,368 hours, within the walls of HCI. Of course that number is higher for the 65 students who participated in extra curricular activities. Thirty-one students also participated in sports outside the scope of HCI, reported Jackson.
Together, the class won 28 collective provincial medals, had 42 students on the honour roll, and had 26 students win scholarships in their last high school year totaling $106,327.06.
win scholarships in their last high school year totaling $106,327.06.
Besides the awards given out during the academic awards ceremony on June 12, 13 students were awarded scholarships during the graduation ceremony.
Jackson once again reported that 60 students held down part-time jobs and 45 of the students will be heading off to university or college come the fall of 2018.
HCI principal Cory Popoff sent his students with lessons he has learned throughout his life through his principal’s address. These included messages about making it through different traumatic experiences and questions that he discovered at the time, including sitting through Romper Room without hearing his name, his students trying to defy the laws of physics, and spending time with friends on April 5.
For his first lesson, Popoff said in his speech, “life is not fair sometimes, and we all need to build some strategies to deal with tough times...I learned that no matter how hard you try and sometimes, even though you have followed all of the directions, you are not going to get your way.”
What he learned from his second lesson was that, “it is okay to make an effort to challenge your thinking about the way the world works,” he said.
Through his other lesson, he implored students to, “be present for the ones who care about you.”
