Instead of ‘Pomp and Circumstance,’ Class of 2020 graduates with pandemic and protest

Gone also are the senior superlatives that matter to those who worked for them. End-of-year competitions for thespians, robotics engineers, future lawyers and orators. Athletic championships for spring athletes. The in-person grandeur of the Silver Knight ceremony for nominees who logged thousands of hours of community service. Proper farewells, send-offs, goodbyes and thank-yous to the teachers who made it all possible.

The generation born into the chaos of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks will unceremoniously crown their high school experience on June 3 of a historically trying year. Their not-so-fond memories will be drive-by graduations and Zoom ceremonies. It’s the last day of school for everyone else in public school, too.

The Class of 2020 will have much to say about what it was like to embark into a very real world at this time, but it won’t be like anything graduates imagined. Coronavirus stopped time, the economy went into freefall and the streets were filled with protesters, tired and outraged by seeing another black man murdered at the hands of police.