SANDPOINT — While proud parents, siblings and staff of Lake Pend Oreille Alternative High School’s Class of 2020 graduates sat in socially distanced rows, 17 students practiced crossing their legs and walking across the stage in the adjacent hallway for a day most thought would never come.

With Panic! At The Disco’s hit, “Hey Look Ma, I Made It” ushering in the almost graduates, each high schooler strutted across the stage with a victorious grin, a grin that sanctified complete pride in their academic accomplishments.

Principal Geoffrey Penrose’s opening words referred to the group of students on stage as the “COVID Class,” a label he hopes will bring honor to the graduates when they recall their additional challenges and successes brought on by the pandemic.

“The class whose senior year fizzled out into a confusing mirage of missed milestones, they are and always will be the COVID-19, 17, of 2020,” Penrose said. “My hope is somewhere down the road they will come to wear that label as a badge of honor, as the final unexpected, a little bit unfair, hurdle thrown at the end of their path at the end of a 13-year race. But, that’s all it was, was just a minor hurdle and they beat it.”

Although the traditional graduation procession was not approved by Panhandle Health District, the graduation exhibited the other signature Lake Pend Oreille High School traditions, including a student speech. This year Caitlin Yarber, a student who battled speech anxiety, ADHD and anger issues, took to the podium with strength, humor and wisdom.

“Are you guys as nervous as I am right now?” Yarber said as the audience laughed alongside her. Then she explained how her experience at Lake Pend Oreille High School was unique. For starters, it was the first school she actually submitted homework for and attended class at an above 90 percent rate.

“I didn’t do well in school prior to coming here, ” Yarber said. “I was made to feel that I wasn’t very smart … I would hide the work just to avoid getting yelled at. When I finally got to know all of the (LPO) teachers, I felt safe at school for the first time, safe to speak up and open up about my feelings, safe to trust teachers and safe to make friends.”

Students in class would refer to her as a gargoyle because she often sat on the school steps in the morning with friends.

“Usually being called a gargoyle may not come off as a compliment but in this case it is,” She said. “ I hope we will turn into lifelong friends.”

The roast and toast student tributes followed Yarbur’s speech, where one staff member was assigned a student to present to the audience their academic success stories and funny or inspirational memories along their school career that built a strong connection between that student and teacher or counselor.

“I didn’t know this when I chose this young man, but here I am first on the list and he was the last to qualify to graduate,” said Counselor Deb Osborn to Blake Dunkel. “This young man, last Monday at 2:15, we are all standing around going, 'Oh my gosh, did he make it?'”

Osborn said she was always hounding Dunkel, calling and texting him about assignment submissions, but he was a courteous and charming student. “And this grin, I could hear this grin all over the phone,” She said. She presented Dunkel with a plethora of gift cards for food.

Other students didn’t exactly exemplify the perfect student stereotype, according to social studies teacher Luke Childers.

“You know that student the teachers say (they) want? He is not," Childers said referring to Micah Holub.

“It’s not for bad reasons. He is just so inquisitive, he is always asking questions and he will derail anything that you think you’ve set up.”

Holub was known for wearing “the cleanest sneakers” so Childers gifted him with a sneaker cleaning kit, along with a gift card to Joel’s Mexican Restaurant.

“There were times when Micah would leave class to get some air or go to the bathroom or get out to get a drink,” Childers said. “This usually happened around 10 minutes right before the end of class. Come to find out that those trips to the bathroom or to get a drink or get some air were to actually order Joel’s burritos, so they would be ready for him when he was ready to come get them.”

And then there were the creative student types like Kendell Kurrus, who nicknamed English teacher Jeff Keenan “Scruffy” or “Creepy.” He brought out a large stack of papers which he referred to as Kurrus’s short stories in class.

“If the world were full of Kendells there would never be a shortage of thought-provoking questions,” Keenan said. “If the world were full of Kendells there would be plenty of mostly accurate information, if the world were full of Kendells there would never be a shortage of great writing.”

For one of Keenan's English assignments, Kurrus wrote, "I am myself not someone’s version of me. I write what I want to write, I draw what I want to draw, I am friends with who I want.”

To which Keenan commented, “That captures who she is, she is always herself.”

And as each student gloved up at the end of the ceremony to grab their diploma and lift their tassels, the Class of 2020 peered out to the audience as the new alumni of Lake Pend Oreille Alternative High School.

“Tonight we send the Class of 2020 into the world as proud of them as any of the LPO graduates in the past, and maybe a little extra because they had that little bit extra to navigate,” Penrose said.

Aly De Angelus can be reached by email at adeangelus@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @AlyDailyBee.