(Marion) — Marion High School is among the area schools gearing up for graduation weekend. Leading this year’s Marion Class of 2023 is Valedictorian Kaelyn Taylor. Taylor is the daughter of Andrew Taylor and Kelly Hagemann.
Taylor says she’s been fortunate to represent the top of her class ever since being a freshman and looks forward to continuing that lead during Saturday night’s commencement exercises at Veterans’ Stadium.
“I had been valedictorian all four years so there was not really any back and forth and it really wasn’t ever a goal. It was just kind of like if it happens, that’s cool but if not, I’m not going to stress myself out,” said Taylor.
The plans for Taylor are to attend San Angelo State where she will pursue a degree in psychology.
Also leading the Marion Bulldogs will be this year’s Salutatorian Laney Osborne. For Osborne, the news of being named salutatorian came as a bit of a surprise. Nonetheless, she is grateful that her hard work over the years has paid off.
“Actually for the first three years and up until the final grade check, I was fifth in the class so I definitely wasn’t expecting it and I wasn’t here at school on the day that they told us the rankings and so our counselor actually ended up Facetiming me and my mom to let us know which was super exciting. So, it wasn’t really something I was expecting. I was just kind of fine with where I was at and to be honest, my goals were to beat my sisters and they were fourth and fifth so I was like ‘um, it will be fine.’ So it was super exciting when she called me and told me I was salutatorian and it made that last push with all those AP classes and no credit classes really worth it,” said Osborne.
Osborne’s plans are to attend Texas Tech where she will study micro biology and minor in both chemistry and Spanish. From there, she plans to attend medical school in hopes of one day becoming a rural family physician.
Marion High School Principal Stacia Snyder says both Taylor and Osborne serve as great representatives of this year’s graduating class as a whole. She says this class deserves plenty of recognition.
“This class I think I would say is resilient. When they were freshman is when COVID hit so as freshman and sophomores, they were really dealing with not only the normal pressures of life and how do I handle high school and what do I do in high school and how does this look? But on top of that, they had COVID. This class I think has really just been resilient and they found a way to fight through and be successful as they have become seniors. I’m just very proud of their accomplishments as a class,” said Snyder.
Snyder adds that this particular graduating class will more than likely be one of the smallest classes as the district continues to grow.
“We are but we are seeing it more at the younger levels. We are graduating 111 this year so that’s a little bit smaller than last year but next year, we are bringing in our first — I think as a class, the eighth and ninth graders coming in is 140 so we are seeing it (growth) circle up,” said Snyder.
The graduation ceremony for Marion High School gets underway at 8 p.m. Saturday at Veterans’ Stadium.