They came; they saw; they mostly conquered; and the Polk County High School Class of 2016 moved on to college, to the military or to other employment.

Those 156 graduates of Friday, June 10 left their own collective signature on the school and the community.

“My last day of school was Friday,” class salutatorian Patrick James Stimac observed in his speech to the crowd in the bleachers on the football field. “And I not only felt relieved to be done with school but also sad because I kind of like you guys, and it’s starting to sink in that I won’t have the chance to see you all everyday.”

“And finally,” Stimac continued, “No longer will we be high school seniors. We now get to be ‘responsible’ adults in the real outside world and pursue all the dreams that we’ve been concocting over the years.”

Stimac, who admitted to being a fan of Looney Tunes cartoons (he designed his cap after the cartoons he enjoyed in his childhood), continued, “This is the last time that we’ll all be in the same place, but the first time a lot of us will be on our own, and I plan to enjoy it. I hope you all do, too. That’s all Folks.”

Class valedictorian Emma Wagoner, also a star long and triple jumper on the school’s track and field teams, told her classmates, “Every day was a new adventure, and we found the beauty in the smallest things, a new flower in the yard, a butterfly that floats by, playing in the woods like crazy people with our best friends, a little bit of everything. Now we sit here tonight and everything has changed. But it doesn’t have to change just quite yet, there’s so much to look back on and find something special in.”

“As seniors, Wagoner observed, “everything was different. The people in your classes became more like family and less like strangers in the desk next to you. I think when we know we are about to leave we try to hold on to something while we still can. Drama no longer seems worth it and the person beside you is a friend no matter who they are.”

“Right now,” Wagoner continued, “we are all sitting here and about to walk across this stage and into our future. We all have a million thoughts cross our mind, the fear and excitement of what tomorrow could bring. A question of where we will be and what we can do, my fellow graduates and I question what our future will bring for us, and how we can make it the best, the fear of stepping out into a huge world on our own, the uncertainty of how to step away from what we have always known, into something new, and the excitement of what this unknown could bring . . . But, I want to ask everyone to stop pondering the future and to stop running through memories. We are all right here for one last time, one more moment in which all those we have grown up with and all those who love us are gathered in the place that raised us. So, look around. Admire the faces of those you’ve passed every day in the hallway; understand the emotions that the person beside you in the audience is feeling. Just be present . . . Never again will we all be together, so embrace this moment and all that it represents.”

2016’s graduation was the last under the direction of Polk County School superintendent William “Bill” Miller, whose retirement is official at the end of the school year.