Grand marching to a different beat.
Memorial High School to hold alternative-style grand march outside of Emera Centre on Tuesday evening
SYDNEY MINES — Abby Reid understands why her high school graduation will be decidedly unlike those of other years.
But the 18-year-old member of Memorial High School’s class of 2020 also knows she’ll always remember her last year of public school as one that has been understatedly different than other final terms.
“Oh, it’s been very different — we haven’t been in the classroom since before the March break and now the graduation is not going to be what we expected before the state of emergency,” said Reid, who lives in Sydney Mines.
“I get why it has to be done this way, but I am really disappointed because I’m moving to British Columbia in August and this is going to be one of the last chances I will get to see my friends and all the people I grew up with and went to school with over the last 13 years.”
It may be different than in past years, but graduation ceremonies, including a grand march, are going ahead for the Sydney Mines high school.
Thanks to organizers, volunteers and parents, Reid, who will attend the University of Victoria to study history, and her classmates now have an opportunity experience an alternative version of the grand march three days before their abbreviated graduation ceremony.
Memorial’s grand march is scheduled for Tuesday in the parking lot of the Emera Centre Northside in North Sydney. The event will begin at 6:30 p.m., but organizer Denise Jardine is asking participants, who must arrive in a “bubble” car, to show up at the parking lot an hour early to allow the vehicles to be parked in an appropriate manner.
“Because the Emera Centre can only hold so many cars we have to limit it to one car per grad, although some may need two, but because of the parking limitations our No. 1 priority is the families of the grads,” said Jardine.
“This is a grand march unlike any other grand marches that have ever happened — it’s nice that we’re able to give them something and of course there will be graduations ceremonies, different than normal, but a ceremony nonetheless.”
The event kicks off when the piper begins to play. That will be the cue for the graduates to position themselves in front of their bubble cars. The graduating class will then be introduced before grad parent Alton MacKinnon will sing an inspirational song he wrote just for the occasion.
“This song will make them stronger, it will make them more resilient — they are a generation of positive people that will take a negative and turn it into a positive,” said Jardine, who added that lyric sheets will be handed out to all cars so that those in attendance can sing along.
Once MacKinnon begins to sing, the grads will start marching in a preset pattern that includes a brief photo stop at a raised platform along the route.
After the graduates arrive back at their bubble car, a grad-selected song will be played to which members of the MHS class of 2020 are encouraged to dance with their parents. There will also be opportunities for the grads to pose for a few pictures with friends they haven’t seen for some time. And that’s great news for Reid.
“I am really looking forward to seeing friends before I go away,” said Reid, who will be in the company of a sister and two nephews when she arrives in the British Columbia capital later this summer.
Meanwhile, the high school will hold a COVID-compliant graduation by appointment on Thursday and Friday. Graduates, who can pick up their gowns on Tuesday or Wednesday, have been assigned a specific time to go to the school and take part in a brief graduation ceremony.
“I think we have about three minutes or so to get our diplomas,” said Reid, adding that the bitter irony of such a quick ceremony after 13 years of education is not lost on her.
“At least we’re graduating and we’ll have stories to tell in the future.”