Commencement for the Barrington High School Class of 2024 was held May 24, 2024 at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington. (Karie Angell Luc/Pioneer Press)
By KARIE ANGELL LUC | Chicago Tribune
In delivering the senior speech to the Barrington High School Class of 2024 Thursday, fellow grad Tyler Thymian spoke of taking hardships – like the injury the teen experienced that impacted participating in sports and music – and using them to persevere.
“That was all I could do,” Thymian said during the commencement ceremony held at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington. “That is all that any of us can do.”
Tyler Thymian delivered the senior speech during the commencement ceremony for the Barrington High School Class of 2024, held May 24, 2024 at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington. (Karie Angell Luc/Pioneer Press)
There were 696 students in the Barrington High School Class of 2024.
Rowan Patel, senior class president of the Barrington High School Class of 2024, spoke during commencement May 24, 2024 at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington. (Karie Angell Luc/Pioneer Press)
The theme of resilience and rising above challenges was a resounding and reverberating one for the 696 graduating seniors, who started high school as freshmen amid a pandemic – taking classes remotely, living with public health demands of social distancing and wearing protective face masks.
“I’m so pleased we get to have an evening like this for them because they were remote and they were by themselves or isolated at times,” Superintendent Craig Winkelman told Pioneer Press about the 2024 graduating class. “So to be able to come all together for graduation is so special for this class.”
Winkelman said the class of 2024 has flexibility among its qualities, as the teens and young adults move forward into adulthood and beyond their Barrington High School days.
“I hope that rather than viewing it (COVID-19 pandemic) only as a negative, that they’re actually able to … take that resilience and then apply it in different ways in life,” Winkelman said, “and use it as a strength.
“When they experience things that are a challenge, that they can draw upon that and say, ‘You know what? I’ve been able to overcome things and take on new challenges and I can do this.’”
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