Our graduation gift to the Beaufort, Bluffton, Hilton Head class of 2020: We love you
Dear Class of 2020,
You should be gleefully tossing caps in the air right about now.
But the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has ripped you off. After four years of high school, you won’t have a traditional graduation ceremony, or even silly yearbook signings.
Everybody knows it’s a raw deal.
But we want you to know that you are loved, and respected.
My neighborhood has two of the Seahawk-blue signs in a front yard announcing: “Hilton Head High Senior Lives Here. 2020.”
Every one of those signs in yards from various schools all over Beaufort County tells a story.
One of them is for Laura Huggins, a bright girl with her mother’s red hair.
One day, principal Steve Schidrich and two teachers knocked on the door with a certificate. Not a lot of hoots and hollers, but an honor for Laura finishing in the Top 10 of her silent class.
Like most of you, she has big plans, hopes and dreams.
She’s going to Clemson University to maybe turn her passion for camping and the outdoors into a career with a degree from the College of Natural Resources. She earned an International Baccalaureate degree after going all the way through elementary school, middle school and high school in Hilton Head’s IB program.
She plays guitar, acoustic and electric. Her portrait of a Marvel movie character won a first-place ribbon at the South Carolina State Fair. She volunteers at a summer camp for children with diabetes, Camp Sweet Escape.
Her father, architect Kert Huggins, also grew up on Hilton Head. Sunny Littlejohn was his first teacher in kindergarten, and he was in the first graduating class at Hilton Head High. Yes, the class of 1984 got to have a graduation ceremony. And, yes, he went to Clemson.
Laura’s grandfather, Kermit C. Huggins Jr., designed many of Hilton Head’s custom homes, beginning in the early 1970s.
Her mother is a diabetes educator. Her parents met in a smelly gym on the south end of Hilton Head.
So when you hear people blithely saying that South Carolina schools are 49th in the nation and hideous failures, tell them they never looked behind the sign in the front yard.
Your class is brimming with doers and givers and thinkers. We know because we’re the village that raised you.
You have deep roots in our community, and you will make those roots stronger and better.
“Resilient” is a good word for your class.
You’re rolling with these punches, probably better than your parents.
And please know that you have not been forgotten.
Your graduation ceremony will be very different, but you will have one.
Hilton Head High has had one motorcade parade for you and your family, with another planned for June 5 when you pick up diplomas, then go home and see it all on TV. The school decorated the hallways for you. The faculty made a video tribute for you. Restaurants honored you with free meals.
Our newspaper is giving all the valedictorians and others who were to make speeches at graduation ceremonies a chance to do a video version that we can share online. And we’ve asked state celebrities to send a special message to a special class.
I guess it’s appropriate that all of this is a teaching moment.
Your lessons from it will be a lot like things we’ve learned over the years, often the hard way.
This won’t be your last raw deal in life.
And you’re not the first generation to carry a heavy burden. Think of slavery and racial discrimination, immigration, dust bowls, earthquakes, recessions and depressions, wars of all descriptions, the boll weevil, and, yes, pandemics that cripple and kill.
Other classes have gotten through it, and so will you.
Your options will be mind-boggling, but remember that your parents didn’t start out with what they have today. You’ve got to work and save. You’ve got to fall, and get back up to salute the flag.
Remember that old sayings are old sayings for a good reason.
You do get only one chance to make a first impression.
It is better to give than receive.
And honesty is the best policy.
Maybe the pandemic has taught us all a good motto: “It’s up to me.”
Stay out of debt, and remember to say “please,” “thank you,” “ma’am,” and “sir.”
A lot of people helped you get this far. We love you and want you to know it, especially in an unfair pandemic.
Pay us back with good choices.
