Members of Boothbay Region High School Class of 2020 will march on together at 2 p.m. June 5. Essential staff will accompany the 30 students to keep the gathering to 50 people per Gov. Janet Mills’ orders. Parents, friends and the community will witness the ceremony live via Boothbay Region TV, Channel 1301.

Dean of Students Allan Crocker and Principal Tricia Campbell have worked out a schedule for the days leading up to graduation which will bring students and staff together safely to prepare for the march and for scholarship and awards ceremonies which will later be available to view via BRTV and Boothbay Register coverage. Seniors will practice every morning June 1-3 with a final dress rehearsal June 4.

The graduation ceremony will follow tradition: Students will don the cap and gown, Campbell will give the principal’s welcome, valedictorian Hali Goodwin and salutatorian Will Perkins will give their speeches and Superintendent Keith Laser will give his address.

Following the ceremony, BRHS will hold a parade through town at 4 p.m. to celebrate the seniors. The parade includes the seniors and their parent(s)/families in vehicles (limit two vehicles per graduate). Community is welcome to cheer on the graduates as they make their way along the route and asked to follow CDC guidelines. The cars will follow the Boothbay Harbor Police Department for a celebration loop through downtown Boothbay Harbor – leaving school campus into town, to Oak Street, to the library square; the cars will then travel down Commercial Street to Sea Street and the back up to Townsend through town. The parade will continue up Route 27, past the school and up to Boothbay Center, around the Common, then return back to the school campus. 

The decision to hold graduation with just the students and essential staff came from the students; Crocker and Campbell polled seniors on their preferred mode of celebration: to forgo it, move it to summer or early fall, attend separately so family could be present, or march together with no audience.

“It was important to students that they celebrate graduation together as a class,” Campbell said during the March 13 CSD committee meeting.

Crocker shared in a letter to students and families, all the rules which normally apply to graduation ceremonies still will, especially the dress code: Girls will wear a dress and white shoes and boys will wear black shoes and pants with a white shirt and tie under their gowns; there are to be no flip-flops, jeans, or other casual dress. Crocker said there will be a couple new rules for this year’s graduation: All graduates and other attendees will be required to wear masks and distance themselves from one another by six feet.