Patterson High grads pass cedar rope to Class of 2017

PATTERSON – Patterson High’s Class of 2016 left school Friday night and left some gifts behind.

One gift is a new machine for making school IDs. There were jokes about how useful the machine will be when absentminded students lose their IDs.

But the more meaningful gift is a school tradition: a rope made of cedar, carried into the school gym during Friday’s commencement by the class’ top students. Each of the 88 graduates also carried a sprig of cedar.

“It’s the tie that binds all Lumberjacks, past, present and future,” Principal Rachael Sanders said in her address to the graduates.

Sanders told them that her sister texts a prayer every morning. On Tuesday, the prayer quoted Psalms 92:12: “The righteous man will flourish. … He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon.”

“My reply to her,” Sanders said, “is OMG.”

Sanders said the cedar grows deep roots before growing upward, and grows upward before spreading out.

“It’s your time to grow up and grow out,” Sander said.

The class valedictorians, both 4.0 students, talked about the opportunity to pursue life as adults.

“We have grown together as a class and must accept the reality that we are young adults,” J’mia Young said. “Now it’s time to venture out into the world, wherever it may be. There will be times when we fall. But we shall overcome as always, even though it might take us time.

“Our class is full of bright, confident and beautiful-slash-handsome ladies and gentlemen who know what they want in life and have amazing goals they want to accomplish. Because of Patterson High School, we are one step closer to achieving them.”

Young’s goals include pre-med training at Xavier University.

Fellow valedictorian Aaliyah Stewart, who will study neuroscience at Tulane, warned her classmates that their high school achievements will always be just that. Now it’s time to move on.

“There is a common sense of unity that flows through us all,” Stewart said. “Our individual experiences here combine together to represent what we all went though at Patterson High, that one individual’s problem was everyone’s issue, and that what one achieved, we all achieved. …

“One thing the Class of 2016 knows how to do,” Stewart said, “is achieve our dreams.”