With everything else out of the way, we seniors just had to focus on attending the baccalaureate and the graduation ceremony, which were two days apart from each other.
In the years leading up to me going to high school, commencement was typically held on the last day of school, which was normally a Friday. The senior class got the week before graduation off. However, I guess there were problems in figuring out who was supposed to be able to graduate before the baccalaureate. This would cause some students who thought they were graduating to attend the baccalaureate on Sunday, only to find out that they didn't pass their final exams and couldn't go to commencement. But they had already dressed up in the gowns and gone to baccalaureate. They thought they were graduating.
So, the administration started scheduling graduation earlier and earlier. My sophomore year, it was on a Thursday. My junior year, it was on Wednesday. My senior year, it was on Tuesday. This meant that we had almost two weeks off from school. I don't think any other class that followed us ever got an earlier graduation day.
I never really understood why we needed to do the baccalaureate. It's a religious type of event in which one of the local preachers delivers an address. Supposedly, the senior class chose who got to speak, but I don't remember anybody asking me who we should choose. The ceremony is confusing because there's supposed to be a separation of church and state. No one ever said we didn't have to go to baccalaureate, but no one skipped it. I don't think there were any atheists in my class. If there were, they kept their mouths shut and came to baccalaureate anyway. At any rate, I still think it was a waste of time.
A few hours prior to the baccalaureate, the entire graduating class had to gather at the football bowl for the group photo and the rehearsal for both the baccalaureate and graduation. We all had to wear our caps and gowns. The Friday before the seniors got out of class, the school paper printed the yearbook photos of the students who were (supposedly) graduating. Not all students had photos available, so it was just their names listed. I saw a few names of students I don't recall seeing at school. One of them really caught my attention because it appeared to be Asian. I don't know how I knew this, but I could tell it was Vietnamese. However, I couldn't tell if this person was male or female, but I certainly don't remember seeing any Asian people in my classes.
I saw this particular student during the rehearsal. It was a girl. As it turned out, she was the last girl in our class to walk across the stage. I think that they put her in the Special Education program because she probably didn't speak English very well. I guess her family had come to Artesia from Vietnam. A majority of the refugees went to Texas and California. I have no idea how they came to my little town, because nobody else from Vietnam wound up there. It's really too bad that I never got to know her, because the woman I wound up marrying turned out to be of Vietnamese ancestry. I wish I could have learned a little about Vietnamese customs beforehand, but I doubt her parents would have wanted her to have anything to do with any American boys.
Up next: The big day that would lead to the rest of my life.
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