Karns City sends off 106 Gremlins
KARNS CITY — A group of 106 students who’d put in four years of hard work for their big day were faced with the prospect of having to wait one more day for their name to be called.
Ultimately, despite a fierce thunderstorm Thursday night, June 5, the weather held off for just long enough for a commencement ceremony to be held at Karns City Area Jr./Sr. High School’s Diehl Stadium.
“I’m really excited for my future,” said Jaysa Capone, an Honor Society student who is headed to Duquesne University with multiple scholarships and will study history and pre-law. “It’s a bittersweet moment since I won’t get to see my friends every day, but I’m so excited.”
Capone added that her most enduring memories of Karns City will be her AP History class, which she said helped forge her future path, and the fact that it rained on her graduation day.
While some students, such as Capone, opted for the route of college, others, such as Davantae Doughty, chose a different path. Doughty is heading straight from high school into the U.S. Air Force.
“I just thought about serving my country,” Doughty said. “I was originally going to go to the Marines, but then I was talking to a few recruiters and the Air Force piqued my interest.”
When asked what he thought of graduating, Doughty joked, “Thank God it’s over.”
Other students chose to head straight into the workforce, such as Mason McTaggart, who is going into the excavating business.
“I really enjoyed getting into vo-tech,” McTaggart said. “I took building construction. It was a mixture of everything with a house.”
This year’s Karns City commencement had a consistent theme throughout, as nearly every speaker who came to the podium made references to the works of famed writer and cartoonist Shel Silverstein.
The Silverstein references started with the opening speaker, principal Michael Stimac, who made reference to the poetry collection “A Light in the Attic,” while thanking the Class of 2025 for instilling a culture of kindness
“’A Light in the Attic’ is more than a book of poems. It’s a reminder that something is always glowing quietly inside us and, in the case of this graduating class, that glowing light is your kindness,” Stimac said. “From day one, this class has lit a flame that sparked a culture of kindness. You ask things like, ‘How are you doing?’ and you mean it. You ask, ‘What can I do to help?’ and then you actually help.
“You’ve created a legacy of kindness and service, one that will echo in our halls long after you’ve gone.”
Class president Savanna Prescott followed by invoking Silverstein’s classic story “The Missing Piece,” while encouraging the graduating seniors to embrace the journey to where they’re going as much as their destination.
“In life, many of us think, ‘If only I wasn’t from a small town. If only I made the starting lineup. If only I got the lead role,’” Prescott said. “We can see that our completeness isn’t always found materialistically. It is within us. … While we move on and continue looking for our missing piece, remember that it isn’t always the piece you think you need that shapes you, it is the journey we take to find it.”
Griffin Booher, class salutatorian, compared the high school to the “Giving Tree” of Silverstein’s poem of the same name.
“We are the boy and those who have supported us throughout our journey to graduation are the tree,” Booher said. “They have sacrificed their time, knowledge and, most importantly, their patience to see us succeed. As we step into the future, we, like the boy in the story, are ready to explore the world. Let’s carry the idea of ‘The Giving Tree’ with us, offering what we can to those who need it.”
Next, valedictorian Liam Rodgers encouraged the graduating class to be adventurous and journey into the unknown by making reference to the poetry collection “Where the Sidewalk Ends.”
“Karns City is our sidewalk that we have walked for six years,” Rodgers said. “When we look back on everything that we’ve done and all of the people we’ve met, it’s easy to get worried about moving on and leaving it all behind. But Silverstein’s poem tells us not just to accept change, but to bravely seek it out.”
