Graduates reflect as they turn page

HOUSTON’S GRADUATING CLASS OF 2020

The end of senior year is supposed to be laced with once-in-a-lifetime memories: graduation speeches, senior solos, proms and promises to keep in touch. But for the class of 2020, many of these milestones have either fallen by the wayside or moved online due to the coronavirus pandemic. Still, Houston’s high school graduates are making the best of their senior spring, and keeping their eyes on the future.

Missed graduation solos. Canceled tennis tournaments. Pompless circumstances. Many members of the high school graduating class of 2020 left for spring break in early March and never returned. They’ve adjusted to a socially distanced life in which classes happen via computer screen, and group hangouts require 6 feet of separation. Now, as local high schools tweak their graduation plans — some opting for virtual ceremonies, others pushing them to late summer with hard caps of four guests per student — this class prepares to end a chapter that to many feels unresolved.

Still, says Victorino Reyes, a senior at YES Prep in southwest Houston, this current cultural question mark “is not an excuse to throw away personal goals or think that they can’t happen anymore.” So these grads are looking to the future.

Gus Thompson, LAMAR HIGH SCHOOL

The diversity of Lamar High School always made Gus Thompson feel comfortable and included. “It’s such a big school, so I never felt left out,” he says. He found camaraderie on the lacrosse team and plans to play for Southwestern University, too.

Though Thompson is excited

Godofredo A. Vásquez / Staff photographer La’Trael Adam hopes to say goodbye to friends at Eisenhower High’s graduation ceremony.

Lamar High School student Gus Thompson says he has valued the diversity of his school and the camaraderie he found on its lacrosse team.