Despite originally being canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Castle View High School class of 2020 held their graduation ceremony June 26.

CVHS, like 13 other Douglas County high schools, was able to host the event after county commissioners requested a variance, or an exception from state coronavirus guidelines, and it was granted. 

Principal Rex Corr addressed the graduating class, pointing out that this group of students would also hold a special place in his heart.

“Four years ago, you entered Castle View High School at the same time I entered my first year of principalship,” he said. “You were short, wide-eyed and terrified. And so was I.”

Corr asked students to care for themselves and each other as they enter a world fraught with struggles.

“I know that I’m sending forward our greatest hope for resolution, and that is you,” he said. 

Students selected teacher Colin Lynch to speak during the ceremony. 

“Ladies and gentleman you must be willing to fail, fail often, sometimes fail big,” he said in his address. “Never stop learning from those mistakes. Challenge yourselves.”

One student from each of the high school’s academies addressed the class before the students from that learning track were presented on stage. For the Biotechnology and Health Sciences Academy, Collin McKenna spoke.

“It’s time to recognize that no matter who we were in high school, or who we were before, it’s time to let that go,” McKenna said. “In order to better ourselves, we must move on.”

Other speakers included Camryn Gallegos for the Leadership, Global Studies and Communication Academy; Jesse Lehn for the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Academy; and Samantha Heppenstall for the Visual and Performing Arts Academy.

“Class of 2020, I challenge us to do things that the world is not expecting of us,” Lehn said. “Because the next big thing is never something everyone expects.”