Charleston County School District, SC 2020 Virtual Graduations, 8 Jun 2020

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From YouTube: Charleston County School of the Arts Virtual Graduation 2020 - Version 2

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Charleston County School of the Arts Virtual Graduation 2020 - Version 2

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Good evening, I'm jury to postulate superintendent of charleston county.

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Schools and it's a pleasure to welcome you to this graduation celebration for.

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The class of 2020, as you know, this virtual ceremony is just the first way.

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Graduates will be recognized. Your school has planned face-to-face diploma.

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Awarding ceremonies for you in the coming days today, I want to acknowledge.

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Up front that we'd all rather be together, just as we would have preferred.

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To spend the last two months going to class participating in or attending.

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School activities going to the prom just enjoying the normal school during the.

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Final weeks of your journey that began many years ago in elementary school and.

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Brought you to this point, however: the pandemic has forced all of.

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Us to rethink everything that we previously knew as normal. One thing that.

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Has not changed is your remarkable accomplishments. We gather today to.

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Recognize the relationships that you have formed to honor your achievements.

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Your memories and your hard work, so I offer to each of you my personal.

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Congratulations: you've achieved this milestone event of graduation. We will.

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Celebrate you virtually today and look forward to seeing you in person to offer.

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You our best wishes, as you enter the world as the remarkable class of 2020.

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Welcome to all soa seniors and their loved ones. I invite you to put on your.

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Cap as you viewed the ceremony making sure your tassel is on the left side, not.

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Only our accomplishments, as students definitely worth noting, but our.

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Accomplishments as artists are as well the portraits we've painted and poems.

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We've written and music we've mastered these past few months have been surreal.

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Now, like never before, I can picture my day-to-day life being in the page.

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Of a textbook that our children will study one day and it's for that very.

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Reason that the skills we've developed as artists are so important. It was after.

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All in the midst of the spanish civil war that pablo picasso painted guernica.

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The famous mural that persists is one of the most poignant anti-war artworks to.

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This day it was in the strife of 1945 during a cigar worker strike in this.

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Very city that tobacco workers sung for the first time the modern version of we.

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Shall overcome a song so powerful? It became the soundtrack to the civil.

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Rights, movement- and it was directly after the horrors of 9/11 that column a.

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Can penned the novel, let the great world spin a book that decades later would.

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Lift the spirits of dozens of ap lang, students reminding us that, even when.

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Times are hard, the earth continues to turn and we continue to have each other.

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In times of uncertainty and tragedy, art is how we cope, how we pick ourselves.

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Back up again and continue forward, not all of us will become composers and.

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Playwrights and designers, but all of us have been shaped by our time at soa and.

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I know we can persevere in the face of this pandemic because we are equipped.

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With the skills to create beauty, even as the world insists on showing us ugly.

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Truths, it's been said that life gives out lemons. Well, sometimes your.

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Graduation ceremony is on youtube even still the performances you're about to.

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See you will astound inspire and comfort you.

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Sweet as lemonade.

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Oh say: can you see by the dawn's early light? What so proudly we hailed at the.

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Twilight's last gleaming, whose broad stripes and bright stars through the.

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Perilous fight, the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.

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My tour flag was still there oh say: does that star-spangled.

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Hello class of 2020 right now, I'm imagining you all in front of me, clad in.

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Caps and gowns tassels like red and yellow stars.

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This image is nebulous and celebratory, and it gives me joy and hope and a.

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Little bit of sadness, because, instead of all of you, I'm speaking to an empty.

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Theatre wishing it were filled in all honesty, I'm not exactly sure what I'm.

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Supposed to say, I'm not exactly sure which anecdote to insert here or how to.

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Thank every one of you for these past seven years, but I guess I'll tell you.

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This and it's the best I can do lately. I've been thinking a lot about moving on.

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A symptom of growing up- I guess- and it brings me to something a friend recently.

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Said as we discussed this year's uncertainty and that of the next I'm.

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Going to miss the marshes the most she said lately, I've been thinking a lot.

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About moving on now, it's all I can think about of driving down dark stretches of.

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Us 17 wedged between briny, inlets and waffle house's drives. I know we've all.

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Taken the cord grass and molting blue crabs, watery coffee, hashbrowns, a.

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Creamsicle sky, the salt, cicadas honeysuckles, the bless, your hearts and.

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That one waitress, who always calls you honey and the southern accent, the.

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Consistency of butter and that rain that never seems to come, but when it finally.

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Does all at once there's a kind of creation in the marsh like when my.

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Sister and I were younger, plotting through the mud to try and find.

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This discarded couch and a giant pair of boots behind our house convinced that a.

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Giant lived there, our childhood filled with the same pungent smell the growing.

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Pains and the afterburn of salts, modeled, blue and green, and I think that's why.

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I'm going to miss it, I'm going to miss the same kind of creation. I saw you do.

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Every day, your imagination, your music melting in the hallways, your acrylics.

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Across canvases, your dresses meticulously sewn.

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Sing, ballets, the poetry and at all the stage you acted on and the characters.

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You embodied creation, you'll find yourself coming back to again and again.

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Because you're, all artists and artists are needed, especially in this world,.

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Especially now we'll find ourselves back here to one way or another, and when you.

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Do roll down your windows heat, rising off the road, the halfmoon mouths of.

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Oysters the lightning in the clouds, I will think of many things. I will think.

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Of the marsh of adolescent adventures, I will think of the relief when it finally.

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Begins to rain when everything becomes sweet and familiar like honey, and I will.

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Think of all of you, the car moving along the road, as you do now, moving on the.

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Faint ghost of summer on your lips, everything, blue and green and honey- do.

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You want your syrup on the side a brief moment when you forget, where you're.

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Going where you've been you, the artists, somehow still driving.

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Somehow, still driving forward with all the confusion and chaos of the last few.

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Months I want to leave you with this something I recently read in william.

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Faulkner is the sound and the fury something I think embodies today. Maybe.

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Tomorrow or maybe even the night you're back driving down u.s. 17 again years.

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From now, even and you find yourself wedged between the inlets and the waffle.

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House faulkner writes some days and late august at home are like this. The air.

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Thin and eager like this, with something in it's sad and nostalgic and familiar.

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Thank you good evening class of 2020. As I address a student list, rosemarie myers.

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Theater, I am reminded of just how much life you bring to these buildings. It's a.

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Difficult time to be moving out into the world, as you say, goodbye to friends.

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You've known all your life, you have to check yourself to keep from embracing.

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Them, as you continue to find your voice as a.

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Young adult you find it muffled by a mask and, as you hurdle toward a future.

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Years in the making you find it uncertain, perhaps even falling away.

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Before your eyes, you have faced this pandemic with grace and a quiet courage.

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While they're plugging away on your schoolwork from home, finding virtual.

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Ways to lift up others or creating masks for the health care workers risking.

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Their safety right here in charleston- maybe is you prepared to watch this.

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Video, you wondered if you could get away with wearing pajamas to your own.

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Graduation and you were both pleased and a little saddened to find that the.

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Answer was yes, I know this is not the jun. You would have chosen for yourselves.

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But it is the jun that has arrived. 2020 remains your year and she waits to see.

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What you will make of her? You are graduating from the school of the arts.

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You are no strangers to making your own beauty. I've thought a lot today about.

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All the little miracles I would find if I investigated any of the art classrooms.

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The dresses made real from nothing but ideas. The canvas is so gently filled.

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With color the sheet music, tired from the frequent touch of fingers, this.

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School is a testament to your talent and your drive. Yes, you're living in a time.

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When toilet paper is hard to come by and protests are abundant, but you will find.

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A way to make this beautiful, it's who you are all of you, we have a.

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Responsibility now more than ever, to reach out to each other and lend our.

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Support you've spent the last four years, or maybe even seven thriving in a.

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Community of artists, but now we're going off on our own wild paths in the next.

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Community you'll find will be the one you build yourself as artists, your.

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Visions of the world are powerful and it's your job to recognize the value of.

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Your perspective and consider the good you might do in.

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Sharing it, thank you to the essential workers and medical professionals who.

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Allow our world to continue to turn and a huge thank you to the parents, teachers.

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And administrators of soa you've guided us day after day year after year and.

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It's because of you that we're here today, even if here is a video feed where.

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Others might have lamented the loss of tradition. The soa staff saw the.

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Opportunity to create new traditions and seize this opportunity with enthusiastic.

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Hands we, the student body, salute you for your efforts and your passion. You've.

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Brought light sometimes literal laser lights to a dark time and now for the.

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Difficult part saying goodbye, especially when I haven't had the chance to say.

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Hello to most of you in months to quote the iconic leslie knope, let's break out.

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A map, not the old, out-of-date one that shows where we've been but a crisp new.

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One that shows where we might go class of 2020. You have officially completed.

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High school, despite hurricanes, despite the.

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Occasional freeze and, of course, despite kovat 19 the world through everything it.

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Could at you and you marched unyieldingly on now, we find ourselves in.

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A waiting game straining to hear the sound of doors swinging open watching.

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For playgrounds to fill with more than caution tape, but as we wait, we've been.

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Gifted a stillness that is unusual for our culture. This is a rare time in which.

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The world has slowed down for us and it should not be wasted just for a moment.

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Put thoughts of the future aside, stop take a breath rest and then do what.

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Artists do best make this beautiful. Thank you. When you see the individual.

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Images of our seniors you'll see the following distinctions.

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Listed senior thesis, soa, credential and soa credential with distinction, the soa.

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Senior thesis is a culminating project. All of our artists have the opportunity.

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To participate in during their senior year, and it is a requirement for the soa.

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Credential and the soa credential, with distinction artists who choose to.

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Participate in senior thesis are often paired with artists mentors in the.

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Community and work with our arts faculty to create a final, independent, exhibit.

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Composition concert performance or publication that fully showcases the.

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Honing of their voice and the comprehensive cultivation of their craft.

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Students who earn an soa credential completed the senior thesis volunteered.

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For at least 80 hours of community service achieved a minimum of a 3.0.

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Grade average and earned credit for an art or music history course to be.

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Awarded an soa credential with distinction, our seniors have met the.

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Requirements of the soa credential, plus an additional 80 hours in community.

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Esso, a class of 2020, wherever you are viewing this ceremony, I invite you now.

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To stand with the power vested in me by the state of south carolina and the.

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Charleston county school board, I shan't and cooked verify that you, the.

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Candidates have satisfied the requirements of the south carolina high.

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School diploma at this time, I hereby certify these diplomas of the graduating.

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Class of charleston county school of the arts for 2020, you may now move your.

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Tassels congratulations graduates. We give us away.

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Art is power in its vision will stay.

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Seven years later- and I still remember my first day of soa vividly.

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Since then, I've discovered that soa is one of the most unique communities I'll.

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Ever have the blessing of being a part of not only have my teachers shown me.

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Endless grace and counsel I've been surrounded by some of the most talented.

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Students in all of ccsd we've watched one another stretch, grow taller and.

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Wiser guiding each other when needed. I know that in the years to come, I'll find.

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Myself, looking back on my time at s away, somehow forgetting about the stench of.

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The paper mill and the goose infestation only remembering the hundreds of hours.

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We spent laughing and learning together, although no one needs a reminder about.

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The uncertain and unfortunate times we find ourselves in today I want to.

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Emphasize how proud I am of our class for sticking it out and seeing the end.

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Of this year through, even if it was not how any of us pictured graduation our.

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Goodbyes at the beginning of this school year, thank you for tuning in to today's virtual ceremony anyway, and with that we.

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Are graduates of school of the arts? Congratulations y'all,.

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