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After much consideration, NS student government and senior committee decided to have graduation outside instead of doing it inside this year. The main question is if this will be an improvement.
NSHS teacher of the year, Cami Christensen, who is in charge of planning graduation, thinks it will be an improvement. She also thinks this is the best way to do it this year.
“I think it’s a better idea to do it outside,” Christensen said.
Christensen has many reasons as to why she wants graduation outside, but one of her main reasons is space. With classes getting bigger and bigger it’s hard to find room to fit all of the students and parents.
“There’s as many seats outside as there are inside,” Christensen said. “We have the whole football field.” Christensen believes that outside is just as good or even better than the inside seating.
Senior Aubrie Stiglitch, who attended last year’s graduation, shared that the seating was a problem. There was barely any room for anyone no matter how early you showed up.
“It was so jammed it was so hard to find seats at graduation,” Stiglitch said.
With the change of graduation being outside, they hope that seating should be a much more pleasant experience. Seeing from the seats also shouldn’t be a problem. The outside graduation will be set up so that anyone should be able to see it from anywhere. Hopefully by doing this there will be more seating arrangements for everyone to sit at, making it less cramped.
“We’re centering it, so you should be able to see everything from both ends,” Christensen said.
Christensen loves the natural scenery of our mountains and hasn’t been too worried about decorations. She believes that the outside has enough beauty by itself so it doesn’t need much to make it look decorated.
“My favorite part about having it outside is we have the best view of the horseshoe,” Christensen said. “We’re outside, so we don’t need big decorations.”
Tradition is one thing that many at NS love, and graduation has been inside ever since the school was founded. This tradition has had held up for a long period of time, but Christensen believes this is the better option. If all goes well having graduation outside might be a new tradition for NSHS.
“I think there’s a way to keep tradition, but still improve on it,” Christensen said.
Many of the seniors, when voting, believed this was the better choice.Graduation is all about the seniors, so NS had the seniors vote on whether or not the graduation should be outside or inside.
Stiglitch and senior Allie Ivory shared a similar view on the matter.
“I think the outside is more beneficial, ” Ivory said. “The only thing we are worried about is the weather,” Ivory said.
Though nearly 80 percent of seniors voted for the graduation to be outside, not everyone agreed. Senior Daniel Lewis shared a different view. He thought graduation would be better inside once more and believed lots of worry came from it being so new and how many were stressing about putting it all together.
“I think I voted just for it inside, so we didn’t have to worry about it,” Lewis said.
Even though Lewis voted for it to be inside, he was fine with it being outside. He didn’t care as long as the seniors were being recognized and then also graduating.
“I mean, I’m perfectly okay with it being outside,” Lewis said. “I just voted for it inside to make it less of a hassle.”
The main concern about having graduation outside is if the weather is going to be good enough for it. Last year, graduation was also meant to be outside, but the weather was not suitable to be in.
“I check [the weather] on a regular basis,” Christensen said.
Currently, the weather during graduation is meant to be partly cloudy and not a problem. Regardless of the risk, Christensen still thinks it’s a better idea that they have it outside. The weather is something that’s always changing but Christensen has belief that the weather will be good enough for this year.
“It’s a gamble, that I’m willing to try,” said Christensen.
Overall, graduation should go smoothly this year as long as the weather holds up.
