Reaching the summit: Rainier High School celebrates class of 2025

Surrounded by hundreds of friends, family members, and teachers, the 65 members of the Rainier High School class of 2025 received their diplomas inside the Mountaineer Gym on Friday, June 6.

The ceremony marked the official conclusion of the students’ four-year high school journey at Rainier. For many, the journey within the Rainier School District began as early as kindergarten.

As “Pomp and Circumstance” played from the gym’s speakers, the seniors made their way to the stage in pairs. By then, many in the audience had already started using their programs as fans.

Good for aiding in the evaporation of sweat. Not so much for wiping away the tears to come.
Fellow seniors Sarah Barry, Ella Marvin and James Meldrum collectively led the evening’s program as master and mistress of ceremonies, inserting quips and anecdotes about themselves and fellow classmates, while offering plenty of praise. The three emcees kicked off the evening with the playing of the national anthem and a group speech, followed by the senior slideshow — a Rainier High School tradition.

As songs like “Little Wonders” by Rob Thomas, “Dreams” by the Cranberries and “Forever Young” by Alphaville echoed across the gym, the audience was shown pictures of each graduating senior, oftentimes in a series of three, beginning with a baby picture and ending with the student’s senior photo.

Zander Peck then presented the senior gift — a mural of a mountaineer scaling an icy sheer cliff face, with tall peaks rising in the distance, and the Mountaineers school staircase appearing in the foreground.

“Let this mural be something that reminds all future Mountaineers that in our lives, we will always have mountains to climb, difficulties to overcome, and as Mountaineers, we have the ability to reach the summit,” Peck, the lead artist said. “I hope that this mural can show everyone they, too, can climb their mountain and reach the top.”

After Orion Dobson was honored as salutatorian, school valedictorian Bryn Beckman gave a speech to her fellow seniors and audience members. In her speech, Beckman emphasized that the night was not just about where the senior class was going, but also how they got to this stage — the people, places and moments that shaped them.

Sometimes, Beckman said, it’s the “small ordinary things that end up meaning the most.”
Referencing the book “Imagine Heaven” by John Burke, Beckman spoke about people who had near-death experiences and what they believed were glimpses of the afterlife. In these accounts, Beckman said, these people “re-experienced their lives through the eyes of the people they impacted.”

The stories stuck with Beckman, and made her reflect on her own life thus far, one in which she chased perfection to “measure up” to a version of herself that she thought she had to be. It was her experience coaching for the Special Olympics, she said, that taught her valuable lessons about living in the moment and caring for one another.

“They reminded me that progress matters more than perfection, that being present matters more than being impressive, and that when you show up with a full heart, that’s enough,” Beckman said. “And once I saw that, I began to recognize it everywhere.”

Beckman shared moments of studying for advanced placement exams, basketball camps, bus rides, field trips, middle school dances “where no one actually danced,” and the experience of finally taking off her COVID mask and seeing how everyone had changed.

“So to my classmates, I wish you all the success in the future, but I hope you don’t forget the things that truly matter,” Beckman said. “Because the most meaningful parts in life ought to come quietly. They come in how we treat people when no one’s watching, and how we rise after we fall, and how we encourage when others doubt, and how we make others feel seen, heard and loved.”

Beckman concluded by thanking her classmates, teachers, teammates, coaches, family and the entire town of Rainier.

Beckman’s father, Principal John Beckman, spoke next about the “rare and rewarding privilege” of watching many of these seniors grow up in the years before they first walked the halls of Rainier Middle School, and later Rainier High School. He said there was one message he wanted to leave them with.

“Time is the one thing that you can’t get back,” Principal Beckman said. “Right now, it may feel like life is just beginning, and it is, but there’s a strange truth: the older you get, the faster it all seems to go by. One moment you’re here full of excitement, and in a blink, you’re looking back, remembering moments like this one, wondering where the time went.”

Minutes later, Superintendent Bryon Bahr and Rainier School District board members presented diplomas to the Class of 2025, as Career and Technical Education (CTE) Director Sandy Rossmaier read out each graduating senior one by one, telling audience members what their future plans were.

As the recessional concluded to the tune of Kid Cudi’s “Memories,” family members and friends gathered outside the gym, some holding bouquets of roses and flowers, others balloons and cut-out cardboard photos of their favorite senior’s head. Celebratory honks could be heard from departing cars, as groups made their way to dinner reservations. Others lingered, taking photos, sharing hugs, trading stories.

By 7:30, the moon had risen clear over the gym, yet the sun still shone in the sky. A liminal moment on a late-spring day. An ending — in this case a graduation — and the beginning of something new.

For some, there were thoughts of the future. For others, a feeling of hard-earned accomplishment. And still others, that familiar question posed by John Beckman lingered long after they left the gym.

Where on earth does the time go?