Campbell valedictorian documents graduation tonight with selfie

CAMPBELL

Sydney Jones had waited her whole life to give Thursday evening’s speech.

But Jones, valedictorian of Campbell Memorial High School’s Class of 2014, didn’t actually commit to paper the words she’d been thinking about for much of her 18 years until just a few days ago.

They had to be just right.

“I’ve wanted to be valedictorian forever,” Jones said. “And I wanted to have the right words to say to the class before we left.”

So in front of a crowd gathered for the commencement ceremony at Campbell Memorial Stadium, Jones addressed her classmates, decked out in red and black caps and gowns, and expressed her disbelief that this moment could very well be the last they’d all be together.

She doesn’t “really know if there are words for that” feeling.

It was a group that had, for the most part, traveled together through the district’s elementary, middle and high schools, and a group that had shared in the Halloween parades, the awkward phases and, then, what Jones called “the last everything.”

There was the last Friday night football game. The last homecoming dance. The last, last day of school. The last time “eating those wonderful school lunches.”

“Now, we get our diplomas, take a bunch of pictures, go to a bunch of graduation parties this summer, then go our separate ways,” Jones said, urging the other 75 members of her class to “realize what we have right now.”

She documented the moment by snapping a selfie from the lectern, squeezing into her cellphone’s screen all of the classmates she could.

Read more of the ceremony in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.