GRADUATION: MOMENTS OF A LIFETIME

Some moments that take seconds to accomplish are years in the making.

With the symbolic move of shimmering tassels, LaShea Suzanne Bohannon and 65 classmates from Kelly High School on Friday night crossed an invisible border into their futures.

If the years preceding the milestone event bring highs and lows like that of a ferris wheel, then the week before graduation is a roller coaster ride.

One week to go

"When I was a freshman, a sophomore, a junior, I thought, `I can't wait to get out of here.' Now, it's like every single activity is your last," Bohannon reflected with a hint of melancholy on the Friday evening exactly one week prior to her high school graduation.

As she prepared to head out for an evening with friends, Bohannon anticipated graduation with mixed emotions. "It's such a drastic change, it's kind of scary and kind of exciting too."

In accepting their diplomas during this graduation season, hundreds of Southeast Missouri teens tackle the challenge of carving out the lives they envision.

For most seniors, the nearing end of school life as they have known it for over half of their lives is marked by much more than myriad class activities. There are big decisions to be made in the months preceding diploma night. As winter gives way to spring, spare moments are often filled with scholarship application, job interviews and contemplation.

A chosen course

"I'm going to SEMO," she said. The 18-year-old said without hesitation, "What I want to do is go into speech pathology."

Bohannon resides near Benton with her parents, Gary and Susie, and her 16-year-old brother Benji. She plans on living with her family in their new home while attending Southeast Missouri State, at least during her freshman year.

LaShea Bohannon's mother, Susie, is confident that her daughter will achieve her goals. One of LaShea's greatest characteristics is determination, her mother said. Unbeknownst to Susie Bohannon, her observations, made on the day of LaShea's graduation were echoes of her daughter's assertion a week earlier. "You have to have direction," LaShea Bohannon said, "or you'll be lost."

Five days to go

Spending a Sunday evening pouring over English literature and anticipating study for finals involving accounting and trigonometry, Bohannon was feeling pushed. Her last hours of high school, she explained, would be filled with finals of another sort, classroom tests.

"I feel like I can't sleep because I've got too much to do. Last week there was one night I stayed up until 3 o'clock in the morning," she said. "There's this to do and that to do."

With the next-to-last day of her high school career set to commence in about 12 hours, Bohannon said, "It wasn't this bad throughout school or else I wouldn't have made it. I'm about to go crazy right now. I am kind of stressed."

Through her commitment to study, Bohannon ranks fourth in her graduating class. As a whole, her classmates have shown similar commitment to hitting the books, according to Kelly Principal Ernie Lawson. "Of the 66 seniors, 26 students have a 3.0 or better grade-point average," he said.

"They're a real focused group," Lawson said. "I think they know what they want to do and they know what it takes to accomplish it."

Sunday night Bohannon recognized the full impact of graduation was yet to come. "I can't imagine what it'll be like to look in the yearbook and say, `I wonder what happened to him or her.'"

Memories were fresh of a graduate breakfast and recognition ceremony earlier in the day at St. Denis. Through the years, Bohannon said, she had imagined that she would be so grown up, so adult, when it was her time to participate. However, she said, "I don't really feel any different. I don't think I've changed a lot."

"Now I see why some seniors cry at graduation," Bohannon said. "I think I might."

Down to three days

"It feels good to be done with all of it," Bohannon said, excitement in her voice. Turning in the books and completing the last test were "like a big burden lifted off your shoulder," she said. "For the summer, at least, we can enjoy not doing homework and studying."

At the last bell, she said, "several people started crying," herself included. "Everybody was like, `Oh, gosh, it's the last time we're going to run out to our car.'"

On that last day of school, she said, the bond between classmates became apparent as never before. "Even people you never talked with much before, you're going to miss," she explained. Teachers, too, would be missed, she said, naming several that had made an impact in her life.

Conversely, Bohannon brimmed with plans for the next two days. Between her job at Chaffee IGA, shopping excursions for gifts for friends, graduation practice Thursday and a ball game that afternoon, there would be little time for pensiveness.

"I've got to get some shoes to wear," she laughed. "I have some high heels that make my toes curl up in the bottom."

Bohannon said she intended to be as comfortable as possible during the ceremony. "I want to wear sandals, and I think I'm going to, regardless."

Reflecting on no more classes, Bohannon said, "Really, I want to get up tomorrow morning and go to school, just to be there."

Graduation day

Graduation day dawned bright and clear. Bohannon slept soundly and slept late. Upon awakening, her thoughts centered around the immediate, primarily the pending arrival of her boyfriend.

Bohannon said that following the evening's pomp and circumstance she would attend an all-night graduation party at the Show Me Center organized by parents of Kelly students.

Graduation practice the day before, she said, had been weird. After practice, Bohannon said, she and a close friend, Jennifer Backfisch, lingered in the high school halls, walking them one more time.

"The hardest part for me," she said, "is just not seeing those people anymore. Some of them I probably won't see again, and, if I do, it'll probably be at our 10-year reunion.

"I think we'll still be in one another's hearts, even though you move on and make new friends. That's just part of it."

The pragmatic yet fun-loving side of the young woman took over as she contemplated the evening's events. "I'm not wearing mascara tonight," she chuckled. "I don't want to walk up there with black lines running down my face. Even if I don't cry it's better safe than sorry."

Once again reflective of the ceremony that would signify both an ending and a beginning, she said, "You're glad but you're sad."

On the morning before her high school graduation, Bohannon spoke with confidence.

"You can't change it," she said, "and you probably wouldn't if you could. You've got to move on sometime. There's got to be change. It's hard, but you've got to change, to readjust to the situation."