Annabelle Taylor, Oh Lawdy!

This just in: Mike and Jeannie watched the Leavenworth High School Class of 2013 Graduation live on the internet. It concluded just a little while ago. Congratulations to their granddaughter and my adoptive niece, Annabelle, who will head for college at the University of Rochester this fall.

Mike captured a few screenshots of the ceremony, which was supposed to have started at 6:30 Central Daylight Time but was running late. For about a half-hour all they saw was this:

Then the Class of 2013 started filing onto the school's football field:

Once the students were assembled, the JROTC Color Guard marched up to the front:

Some gentleman in the platform party gave his nose a little pick:

The school's principal gave a little speech:

A student named Ariel sang a nice song:

Then not to be outdone, two of her classmates sang a duet:

There were some more speeches. And then finally, as their names were called, the graduates filed across the stage to get their diplomas. There were a lot of them, or maybe it just seemed that way because we were all waiting for them to get to the T's, and Mike was starting to wonder if they ever would. But eventually they did, and then some. We think the second student in this picture is Annabelle. But we aren't a hundred percent sure, as the live-picture feed was a bit grainy and there was a fair amount of time between when they'd call someone's name and when that person finally came down the ramp.

At the very end of the ceremony the principal had everyone move the tassels on their caps from one side to the other, to show that they were now  graduates and no longer students. But I'm not sure what that accomplished, because the next you know, they were all throwing their caps up into the air. Man, I wish I'd been there to catch a few of them.