{"id":1320278,"date":"2020-05-31T06:44:01","date_gmt":"2020-05-31T12:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/in-bittersweet-ceremony-basalt-seniors-show-resilience-for-future\/"},"modified":"2020-05-31T06:44:01","modified_gmt":"2020-05-31T12:44:01","slug":"in-bittersweet-ceremony-basalt-seniors-show-resilience-for-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/in-bittersweet-ceremony-basalt-seniors-show-resilience-for-future\/","title":{"rendered":"In bittersweet ceremony, Basalt seniors show resilience for future"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"619\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/05\/basaltgrad-atd-053120-1-1024x619.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/05\/basaltgrad-atd-053120-1-1024x619.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/05\/basaltgrad-atd-053120-1-300x181.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/05\/basaltgrad-atd-053120-1-768x464.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/05\/basaltgrad-atd-053120-1-1536x929.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/05\/basaltgrad-atd-053120-1-2048x1238.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><\/p><figcaption><strong>Basalt High School Class of 2020 graduates pose for a photo of the tops of their caps on May 30, 2020. (Maddie Vincent\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong><br \/><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">For the valedictorians of Basalt High School\u2019s class of 2020, it didn\u2019t matter that Saturday\u2019s commencement exercises saw spectators sitting on the hoods of parked cars, speakers cleaning microphones with sanitary wipes, and cheers competing with honks for loudest applause.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">They were just glad to be at the same place at the same time \u2014 forget the masks, social- distancing and other health protocols that were unthinkable as recently as early March \u2014 and in a celebratory mood tempered by loss and grief.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cWe\u2019re lucky we even get to have this celebration,\u201d said Sasha Brucker, who lived in Canada to play hockey but continued taking BHS classes remotely for part of her junior and senior years. She wasn\u2019t able to return to BHS for her last few months of school, as planned, because of the pandemic. \u201cIt\u2019s not on Zoom or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Brucker is taking a gap year while she hopes to keep playing hockey. Anne Schrock, also a valedictorian, is off to Columbia University, where she\u2019ll major in physics and comparative literature.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\" readability=\"6\">\n<div class=\"row gspi-donation gspi-donation-mobile p-0\" readability=\"7\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"handleDonationButtonClickMidArticle()\">Donate<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cI set goals, which most said are far reaching. I stayed close to the people that mattered and I followed my own path,\u201d Schrock told the crowd during the valedictorians\u2019 address.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Principal Peter Mueller called Basalt\u2019s graduating seniors a \u201cspecial class of students\u201d who bonded \u201cthrough loss and hardship and despite or because of these challenges, they have shown great love for one another, their teachers, and their parents.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Mueller\u2019s remarks set the stage for what would be a recurring theme at the 9 a.m. drive-in graduation ceremony: This group of resilient graduates is armored and prepared for the future because they endured some tough losses, but none more trying that two of their Longhorn peers last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Anna Cunningham was 16 years old <a id=\"N0x25a02b0N0x25a6340:N0x25a02b0N0x24e7170\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/anna-lynne-cunningham\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">when she died Feb. 28, 2019,<\/a> from a rare cancer. And on May 4 of that year, Tyler Ribich, also 16, was killed in a car crash in Missouri Heights.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cThey have lost <a id=\"N0x25a02b0N0x25a63a0:N0x25a02b0N0x24e7290\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/anna-cunningham-student-who-inspired-basalt-high-school-passes-away\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anna Cunningham<\/a> and Tyler Ribich, both of which would bring most to their knees,\u201d said keynote speaker Ralph Smalley, a coach and P.E. teacher. \u201cBut these seniors rise up and they stand tall for their lost friends. They honor them, they remember them, and they love them. We all miss Tyler and Anna, but these seniors stand tall for them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Joining Smalley as keynote speaker was teacher Sofie Webb, who said while Cunningham missed high school events and social activities because of cancer, she did not play victim to her unjust circumstances.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cAnna took ownership of her short time on this Earth,\u201d Webb said. \u201cWhen her health allowed her, she attended class, she worried about her grades, she joked with her friends; and like so many of her classmates in psychology, she also was horrified by Sigmund Freud\u2019s Oedipus theories.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Ribich was known as \u201cthe performer, the comedian, and the musician,\u201d Webb recalled, and he also was a caring friend and \u201cperson who used his time and his talents to bring joy to others. None of us know how much time we have. Tyler spent it with the people he cared about and on the passions that drove him. He would want you to do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The 104 graduates also heard from their head students \u2014 James Blazier, Daniel Sherry and Benjamin Williams.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cI think the message that I really want to show is that we\u2019re all in this together,\u201d Sherry said ahead of the shared address. \u201cNobody saw this (the pandemic and its effects) coming, and here we are together. This is awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Sherry is headed to CU-Boulder this fall. Like Williams, who is going to Colorado State University in Fort Collins, they are waiting and seeing what the autumn semester will bring.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">As of Saturday, the road map for state universities calls for in-person classes to start the last week of August and go to remote learning after Thanksgiving. Fall break also would be shortened.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Blazier is headed to the University of Southern California.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cMany things were unexpected and unplanned for the class of 2020 this year, and overall,\u201d Blazier said from the stage, which was set on the lawn in front of the high school. \u201cI know that many of us were looking forward to a lot of things that just didn\u2019t happen, or didn\u2019t happen the way we had planned them: graduation, choir, final prom, spring break plans, the musical, even AP tests. Or anything else that you can think of. Out of all the scenarios we pictured this year, this one was \u2014 to say the least \u2014 the most unexpected.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Blazier and his fellow head students, however, encouraged people to at least take comfort knowing they grow when life strays from script.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cBut we urge everyone else to always remember this year, and this spring, and find something valuable within all of it,\u201d Blazier said \u201cI feel like it\u2019s so easy to feel disappointed about hearing everything we missed, but honestly, despite everything, I feel all the same happiness, excitement and pride that I saw and felt in past graduations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">A sidewalk in front of the high school separated the speakers\u2019 stage from the parking lot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Students were called to accept their diplomas in groups of 10. Rather than receiving them in the traditional manner from the principal or superintendent, the graduates collected their diplomas from a side table before elbow-bumping their principal, school board president and other officials on the stage. Following the ceremony, students were saluted in a parade through town.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Tagline\"><a href=\"mailto:rcarroll@aspentimes.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rcarroll@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/news\/education\/in-bittersweet-ceremony-basalt-seniors-show-resilience-for-future\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Basalt High School Class of 2020 graduates pose for a photo of the tops of their caps on May 30, 2020. (Maddie Vincent\/The Aspen Times) For the valedictorians of Basalt High School\u2019s class of 2020, it didn\u2019t matter that Saturday\u2019s commencement exercises saw spectators sitting on the hoods of parked cars, speakers cleaning microphones with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1320278","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 18:26:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1320278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1320278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1320278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1320278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}