Friendships forged are what Murray will miss most about Kinkora Regional High.
“Moving on will be hard,” said the Governor General Medal recipient.
Murray was one of 51 graduates in the rural high school’s 51st graduating class at to walk across the stage Tuesday night to accept his hard-earned diploma.
For him and almost every other graduate, the close-knit school was like family.
“Everybody knows everybody here and it is just nice to have that.”
Almost the entire community filled the school’s gymnasium to show its pride in the accomplishments on the Class of 2013, many armed with cameras and video cameras to capture the milestone for posterity. Some shed tears. Others stood to applaud as ‘their’ grad took the stage to accept that diploma.
The ceremony marked the end of one chapter for the young men and women who will soon scatter across the country and world in pursuit of their dreams. For Jason Sobey, student council president and valedictorian, his next chapter begins this fall Dalhousie University, where he will study computer sciences.
He came to KRHS from Borden-Carleton’s Amherst Cove Elementary.
“Looking back on it, they will definitely be memories I will have for the rest of my life,” the 18-year-old said about his time at KRHS.
Most of his classmates grew up with each other, coming from either Amherst Cove or Somerset Elementary to KRHS.
That wasn’t the case for Harminder Kaur.
Born in India, Kaur joined the Class of 2013 late in the game, in Grade 10.
It was a culture shock but her ‘family’ at KRHS soon made her feel at home.
“Everybody is very sociable and very open and awesome. You can talk to anybody and get along well for everybody,” added Kaur. “We all know each other and we are all close.”
The high school is where trio Clara-Lynn Harvey, Christian Cairns and Twyla Dreger forged a friendship they say is for life.
Harvey attended grade school at Amherst Cove and Cairns at Somerset while Dreger came to KRHS from Three Oaks Senior High in Grade 11.
“It was nice to have a small school. I made friends quickly,” said Dreger. “I was out of school for a year and came back. It is going to be good to finally graduate.”
Harvey is attending Holland College in Charlottetown to study human services while Cairns is staying closer to home, heading to Summerside to study legal administration. Dreger has decided to take a year off to work.
“It’s going to be a huge change,” said Cairns when asked what it will be like not to see each other every day.
It wasn’t only the graduates who were saying goodbye to KRHS Tuesday night.
Principal Donald Mulligan, who has led the school for five years, is moving on.
This fall, he’ll take on the role as principal at Kensington Intermediate Senior High.
“I graduated from here, went to school in the community for years, I’ve been at Somerset and Amherst Cove and in the family of schools now for the last 15 years. It’s a big change for me,” said Mulligan. “It’s a little bit of an end of an era for me, leaving Kinkora high. It’s tough because we are like a big family. It’s not easy to do.”
Mulligan is proud of the Class of 2013 and what each graduate has achieved.
“This graduating class is just an unbelievable bunch of mature young men and women. They have been wonderful and have been great kids right from when I got to know them in early elementary school,” he added. “It’s great when you have a wonderful graduating class because they really set the tone in the school and these guys have been tremendous over the last four years at Kinkora high.”
Watch the Journal Pioneer throughout the week for coverage of other Prince County high school graduations. A complete list of prizes, graduates and awards will be in a special commemorative edition, being printed in July.
