“Well, at least you graduated.”
I think all of us can remember our own graduations, and how important they were to us. The poor cousin of prom, grad was when you were recognized for four, and perhaps five years of secondary school study and achievement. It was a night of speeches, awards, and pride of achievement for both graduates and their families alike. The pomp and pageantry is almost a once-in-a-lifetime event.
It can be emotional.
For most of us, maybe all of us, it will be the last time we’re in the same room and at the same event with all the people you shared the journey with. And although the friendships crafted in high school are the most vital, you realize that many of these relationships, even the tight ones, are now going to drift as you, and your peers, go your own ways and chart your own course in life.
So it’s kind of bittersweet.
Nevertheless, it’s a day and an evening that we’re likely to remember for the rest of our lives.
The same applies to a young girl in Newfoundland-Labrador who, like thousands of others across the nation, has looked forward to her graduation. And while different schools and different communities may have their different ways of conducting and celebrating high school graduation, nobody can really say that they had one in any way similar to hers.
That’s because she’s graduating alone.
Breanna Bromley-Clarke graduated alone, not because she was some special case, or because she had some medical condition that prevented her from graduating with her peers. The real reason is that she has no peers.
She’s the only person in her class.
I suppose there’s nowhere in the land where you’re going to find a better student-teacher ratio.
Seventeen year-old Breanna attends Mary Simms All Grade School in Main Brook, a kindergarten to Grade 12 school boasting fifteen students, meaning they don’t have much of senior girls’ basketball team. School assemblies can be held in a Volkswagen, and the line at lunch is more than manageable. And you’re the absolute star of the show at graduation. For family, friends, and well-wishers, they might want to get out early to get a spot along the graduation parade route, because I think it’s gonna go by pretty fast.
Because Breanna was the school’s only graduate, she got to call the shots for grad, selecting the theme colours and all the other grad-related stuff that’s part of the event. The entire gym was decked out in her theme choices, but I’m having a tough time conjuring up what the gym at Mary Simms might look like, never mind how big (small) it might be.
With a graduating class of exactly one, I’d imagine the ceremony itself would be one of some brevity, and had Breanna wanted a more non-traditional graduation, she could have had a drive-thru window affair, although that’s a tad impersonal if you ask me.
Getting your yearbook signed would be a breeze, I’d think.
I’m surprised nobody reached out to one of the many Newfoundland celebrities in Canada to tell them about Breanna’s story. I remember a story out of the United States a few years back where a girl at a high school did a Twitter invite to Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson as a bit of a gag, although I’m sure she was open to the idea of any response.
And one morning over opening exercises and announcements, a familiar voice came over the school intercom, Dwayne Johnson’s voice, telling the young lady who invited him that he couldn’t attend, but that he had rented out the local theatre so that Katy (the girl) and 250 of her friends could attend a closed screening of The Rock’s latest film, with all the popcorn, candy, and soda they could handle, all courtesy of Johnson.
When Katy attended her prom, she took along with her a cardboard cut-out of The Rock for event pictures. Johnson, on his own Twitter feed (before Elon) posted that this, Katie’s, prom was “the best prom ever.”
I honestly don’t know if Rick Mercer has the same pull on a young girl’s heart-strings, because, no offence to Mercer, but you can just look at him and determine fairly quickly that he’s not The Rock, or even A Rock. But it still would have been cool.
Anyways, congratulations to Breanna Bromley-Clarke on her graduation and for graduating at the top of her class and cleaning-up on all the awards and bursaries that may have been available to Mary Simms’ graduates.
There’s no doubt that she’ll remember the day for the rest of her life.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 