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Grambling Lab holds final graduation

AKANE SIMPSON/The Gramblinite Graduation speaker Dr. LaQuieta Huey (left) receives a gift from Grambling High and Middle Magnet School principal, Dr Pamela Payne.

AKANE SIMPSON/The Gramblinite
Graduation speaker Dr. LaQuieta Huey (left) receives a gift from Grambling High and Middle Magnet School principal,
Dr Pamela Payne.

Air horns sound in bounds of joy and cheer as Grambling High School’s last class of 2016 walk to receive their diplomas. The graduation happened on Monday May 16, 2016 where 36 high school seniors gathered to start the next step of their future.  

Those who gathered at the Fredrick C Hobdy assembly center were greeted with honorary student Abigail Morris invoked the beginning of the ceremony followed by a performance from the high school band, a heartfelt pledge of allegiance and a rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner”.

Later, salutatorian Kyrah Hill, addressed the center with words of wisdom to her fellow graduates while valedictorian Reagan Nation, held back tears as she recounts the times the graduating class spent together and the bonds they have built up starting from the Grambling Laboratory Schools to now.

Nation implored her fellow graduates to do well in their future endeavors.

Lee was Miss 7th grade at GMMS, Miss Freshman Runner up, Miss FBLA, and Miss GHS. She has been apart of the 4-H club, FBLA, National Honors Society, Spanish Club and Student Council.

Hill was captain of the Lady Kittens Softball team and a member of the Dynamic DuMaine Dance line, both which I have been apart of since middle school. I was student of the month for October and a D.A.R.E role model.

Her future plans are to attend Belhaven University and major in biology pre-medicine, graduate with my bachelors degree and attend medical school to become a pediatrician. 

Nation was Miss. AJB and Miss 4-H, Valedictorian of my 5th grade class and student of year, 4-H President in 5th grade , Top Academic student in everything LITERALLY first-fifth grade and sixth-eighth grade, Miss GMMS and student of the year and valedictorian of her eighth grade class. 

She was a member of the Dazzling Kittens in sixth grade and Dynamic Dumaine Danceline seventh-12th grade. Also, Miss. Freshmen, Miss Dynamic Dumaine dancer 10th and 11th grade, Dynamic Dumaine Captain 10th-12th grade, Miss Senior, member of 4-H and Spanish club, SGA Vice President 12th grade, SGA Secretary 11th grade, Cinderella Debutante 8th-12th grade, Cinderella Debutante Historian, Top Academic Student 10th-12th grade, Student of the Year. 

Nation will be attending summer school at Grambling State University, and Southern University in the fall. Upon graduating college, she plans to receive a doctorate at Meharry Medical College in Memphis, Tennessee furthering her plans of becoming a pediatrician. 

By keeping God first, Nation said she has managed to balance school work, hobbies, a job and extra curricular activities with a breeze and for that she is thankful.

Next was the guest speaker, Dr. LaQuieta Huey, worked with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on the Mars landing program and is a distinguish woman of color in her field of materials engineer and respected physicist.

She is also a past student of the Grambling high school class of 1995 and received her BS in physics from Grambling State University before attending Norfolk State for her MS in material science, a MBA in business administration and her PHD in physics from Alabama Agriculture and Mechanical University.

She remarks on the long journey she has made from Grambling High to where she is now and notes the challenges she faced. “No one is better than you. But you aren’t better than anyone else.” She urges the graduates to follow their dreams but to be opened minded to changes along the way.

After Dr. Huey’s speech she was presented with a gift of appreciation for coming to the graduation from the graduating class.

The class was comprised of 39 students, with a mixed background of students, both 

‘brick and mortar’ and virtual.

Out of the 39 students that graduated three of them were from the online component while the rest were on campus. One of the students present was Maryland Shirley who was originally supposed to graduate in 2014 but due to several surgeries on her brain tumor that emerged in the 11th grade, Maryland to graduated by completing high school through GHS virtual program.