Students graduate from Texas school where shooting killed 10
SANTA FE (AP) — In the sweltering twilight on their school’s football field, 328 seniors at Santa Fe High School, located in southeastern Texas, received their diplomas on Friday with memories of a deadly mass shooting fresh on their minds.
The school seniors gathered in the 83-degree heat and 76-percent humidity on the artificial-turf field to become the school’s first to graduate since two substitute teachers and eight fellow students died in a mass shooting on May 18.
A 17-year-old student identified as the shooter is being held on capital murder charges.
The graduating seniors, wearing white stoles in tribute to those slain, and their well-wishers viewed a montage tribute to the slain students and teachers on the stadium’s video display board.
Speeches by school principal Rachel Blundell, valedictorian Corrigan Garcia and salutatorian Bailee Dobson referred to “the events of May 18.”
Blundell, however, reassured the seniors that surviving such a trial equips them with the strength and courage to cope with the challenges that will come later in life.
“Great leaders and great nations have emerged out of the ashes of some of the greatest tragedies,” she said.
Garcia told his classmates that the shared experience only brought them closer and brought them the strength that unity brings.
“We’ve made it through the worst of it,” he said in his valedictory speech.
“Moving on will be tough. Nothing will ever be the same for any of us. But we all have a choice to make,” he added.
The ceremony came a day after US President Donald Trump met privately with families of the victims and others near Houston.