The cheers of family, friends and peers echoed throughout the Tacoma Dome June 8 as over 430 South Kitsap students got their turn to walk the stage at graduation.

Thousands watched while students took their final steps as an SKHS student and stepped off the stage with a whole new selection of potential life paths.

“You’re moving forward,” principal Dave Goodwin said to the class. “I have a philosophy that I think life gets better with every stage, and you’re entering a new stage that is very exciting.”

The day was finally here, though four years ago, it would have been impossible to foresee any sense of a normal graduation. Valedictorian Fletcher Bergeson, who presented alongside fellow valedictorian Skylar Moar and salutatorian Nadine Larsen, remembered just how badly he had wanted to be a sixth-grader when he was in kindergarten only to have sixth grade bumped to the bottom of his middle school.

The students’ move to high school was different altogether. “We went the majority of our first full year of high school, already one of the most difficult times in a student’s life, without seeing the inside of a classroom,” he said of the COVID years and online learning on home computers. “We went another year beyond that only seeing the top half of people’s faces.”

There was no choice but to bear the challenges and overcome them. So perhaps the common saying of “We did it!”— uttered in speeches like that of senior Ryan Allen—had a heightened sense of accomplishment behind it.

Now there is so much more to accomplish, with students bound for new schools, new occupations and new obligations. Allen said: “In a sense, we have already been experimenting with our lives. Now, however, we get to take more risks with it. What is more important is that these risks will help us to grow.”

Kate Knight went so far as to call it perhaps one of the most memorable nights of their lives, advising her classmates in her speech not to settle for the successes society presents but the small moments and things that make them happy.

“As we move to the next chapter of our lives, we need to realize that this is the one chance we get at life, and the only thing we can do wrong is choose not to love it in a way that brings us joy,” she said.

Goodwin cited her remarks in his short speech. “We live in this fast-paced world, and it’s easy to get caught up in the rush of what’s happening next. Being present in the moment allows us to fully appreciate those experiences and the connections that truly do change your life.”

A South Kitsap graduate waves to the audience with her diploma in hand.

South Kitsap graduates applaud their classmates as they walk across the stage.

Seniors perform a concert band piece during the South Kitsap graduation ceremony.

The graduates are proud to show off their newly acquired high school diplomas.