23 years ago this week marked a huge milestone in my life. It was my high school graduation. I was part of a special graduating class at Hempfield Area High School. Our class was the first class to graduate in the new millennium. Even though it was so long ago, it still feels like yesterday.
It was a chilly night for commencement ceremonies and my mom recalls everyone wearing winter coats on the field that night. We had to move graduation back a day because of the rain and almost postponed it again. As the ceremony ended the clouds broke and sunset became visible in the background.
That weekend was my graduation party. The weather was perfect and we had a great turnout. Friends from the swim team showed up, as well as lots of other family members and friends. Even Mr. Clougherty himself made a visit. I’ll always remember two of my friends from the swim team helping our elderly neighbor sit down at our table we had set up in the yard. That was very sweet of them.
When the party came to an end, I wrote out thank you cards and put my money in the bank. My parents always made sure to keep me in line at my young age.
That summer, I got ready to plan for college. I would be attending the Hiram G. Andrews Center in Johnstown come August. The plan would be to attend classes there as a pre-baccalaureate major before transferring to the local community college. I repeat myself constantly in these blogs, but I don’t care. Thus, the $64,000 question.
Why didn’t I stay home and attend Westmoreland County Community College?
That was in the plans at one point, but also Robert Morris College and The Bradford School (both of those schools would have been super expensive). Attending WCCC would have helped me get my credits transferred to a four year school and I could gotten a job to make money to pay for school. But, my mother wanted me to experience life on my own and that’s why we decided on the Hiram G. Andrews Center. I did transfer to a four year school down the road with those credits I got from community college though.
I’ll talk about the move-in day experience at HGA in a future blog post as my experience itself. But I will say, my first semester there went well. I experienced some homesickness at first but I adjusted to college life very quickly.
Eventually, I would begin to prepare myself for my next challenge.
Stylish 🍒 