(Geronimo) — Lights at Erwin-Lee Stadium are set to shine Friday night on this year’s Navarro Class of 2024.
Navarro High School Principal Clay Scarborough says a total of 144 students will be presented to the community during tonight’s commencement exercises.
Scarborough says he is proud of all these students, who started high school during COVID and who have worked hard to excel over the last four years.
“They overcame all that. Eighth grade got shut down for them. They came back in mass and now they are set to graduate. It’s a class that has almost 550 hours of college under their belt,” said Scarborough.
Scarborough says this is a high achieving group of students, who has worked hard both on and off campus. He says juggling all those activities will help better prepare them for the future.
“It’s a great time management thing that they are going to need –
when they go out into the real world, when they go to college — the ability to manage all the things we deal with in everyday life. Some will do their college work — do their sports and academics and whatever do they beyond college and then when they grow up and have their families — if they are able to handle two and three sports and do what they’ve done academically, the only thing in their way is what they want to accomplish,” said Scarborough.
Representing this year’s group of graduates are Valedictorian Hayden Toliver and Salutatorian Taylor Helms.
Toliver says he learned very early on that he could lead his class and today is honored for the opportunity.
“It was not too much of a surprise to me. I kind of already knew but I’m very excited. I’ve been waiting for this a long time,” said Toliver.
Toliver will attend Texas A&M University to study chemical engineering. He shares in the celebration with parents Shawn and Paula Toliver.
Helms, as this year’s salutatorian, is looking forward to joining Toliver on stage.
While it was work, Helms she would not have changed a thing.
“It took a lot of hard work. It took a lot of late night studying especially for my junior year. I took a dual credit history class and we did a lot of note cards. That took a lot of studying for me to do. I play club volleyball so that was a lot also — to try to handle and time manage for both of them but it was definitely worth it,” said Helms.
Helms will attend the Colorado School of Mines and plans to major in bio-medical engineering. Her parents are Nicole and Jason Helms.
Gates to the stadium open at 7 p.m. The ceremony will follow at 8 p.m. A live stream of the ceremony will be available on the Navarro Panther Events YouTube channel. A link to the live stream can be on the Navarro High School Facebook page.