Loralee's Fancy: Brandon's a graduate!

It took a long time for me to make this post because I had to sort through and edit 266 photos that Bruce took of Brandon's graduation. But here it is:

Brandon Jeremy North is
an awesome, spectacular,
Uintah High School Graduate!

(wild applause here)

Now, back at Entheos, in 8th grade, Brandon was not getting such fantastic grades. Unless you count fantastically bad. But he had a change of heart and, just like a switch was flipped, he started getting really fantastically good grades. He made up his mind that he wanted to graduate from high school and do it well. And he has! I don't think he's had any grades lower than a B since 9th grade, and on Friday, May 27, Brandon got to participate proudly in his walk of glory.

Graduation day was a little hectic because Bruce "graduated" from Maeser Elementary too, and we spent the morning helping him clean out his classroom. We got home just in time to shower and then rush off to Brandon's graduation.

ready to go

We got Brandon there a little later than they wanted the graduating seniors to arrive, took Jason to work, and then Bruce and I barely made it back in time to see the graduates marching to their seats to the traditional (and much despised by my children) tune of Pomp and Circumstance. We weren't sure if we'd actually get to see Brandon coming in, but I think he is in this picture:

From where Bruce and I stood (there was standing-room only when we arrived) I thought the boy sitting in the middle of the photo (next to the guy wearing the lei ) was Brandon. When I edited the pics I realized I'd gotten the wrong guy—but look! I'm pretty sure that's Brandon standing right behind him!

Hi-Lites (the top Uintah singing group) sang An Irish Blessing. They stood in a circle around two microphones—which was a good idea, because that meant we could hear them, but it also meant we got another picture of Brandon's back.

There's the tall guy in the middle, and Brandon is the third one from his left. The teacher's name is Mr. Merryweather.

There were three speeches by students, short and sweet (the speeches, not the students), and then the graduates marched forward to receive their diplomas.

Brandon's medal is for participating in choir for two years.

When all the students had received their diplomas there was a quick changing-of-the-tassles (from right to left) ceremony, and then it was all done. Yaayyy for our graduates!!

We had given Brandon my cell phone so that we'd be sure to find each other again. Bruce and I had been standing at the fence on the west side of the stadium to watch the whole ceremony. And when they called Brandon's name and he was walking back to his seat I was waving at him a whole bunch, so I thought that he'd probably seen me. Still, we weren't sure whether he'd look for us at the west gate, or walk to the north gate like they'd told the students to do. Finally Bruce and I headed to the north gate. As we walked northward, still trying to look out for Brandon, Bruce's phone rang; I said, "That's Brandon." And I was right. Bruce asked him, "Where are you?" And Brandon said, "Right next to you." And there he was, just on the other side of the fence from us! :-)

The tassel, my friend, was blowin' in the wind;
the tassel was blowin' in the wind.

So graduation was pretty awesome, but the festivities didn't end there. Uintah High School has this whole big, all-night Grad-Night thing, and Brandon went to that too. The theme was Grad Night—The Future Awakens.

The party started at 11 p.m. and ended at 4:30 a.m; the T-shirt was his ticket in. They had laser tag, karaoke, dodge ball and volleyball, inflatables (like bouncy houses, etc.), bingo, a cash cube, food, a prize-drawing, and they showed Star Wars in the little theater. So it was a pretty fun night.

Oh! And Brandon got a swell poster to bring home, too:

Someone did a little quick-and-dirty photoshopping to create
one of these posters (with different characters) for
each student who went to Grad Night.