Nearly 400 SRSS Grade 12 students are graduating tonight, but the ceremony will look nothing like ever before.

Steinbach Regional Secondary School graduates and their families will be gathering in the Southland Church parking lot around 7 PM for the high school’s first-ever drive-in convocation; a social-distancing-conscious move necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"2020 06 srss grad1" width="350" />Tyson Koop is the valedictorian for the SRSS graduating class of 2020.“When we look back at this year and this group of students, we will remember that they had a very unusual path to get to graduation,” he offers. “I think it has been difficult for them because we’ve taken away some of those social components that make high school very special.”

Barkman acknowledges that the last few months of remote learning have been a struggle for many, but commends his grads for pushing through nonetheless.

“At the best of times, it takes a lot of courage and self-discipline to stay engaged when you are looking forward to the next phase of life and that has just been amplified under these conditions.

Valedictorian Tyson Koop agrees with Barkman, and chooses the word “persistent” to describe his class.

“It’s really easy to just hit the snooze button on the alarm clock and sleep in until 12, turn the computer off, and not pay attention,” he says. “But everybody who is graduating has really put their pencils to their paper, no matter how hard it was.”

In his speech tonight, Koop will be talking about turning obstacles into opportunities; an address he deems befitting of the times.

“This is not the path we necessarily wanted to take, but it’s the path we’ve been given and all that we can do is try our best to be our best.”

While Koop laments not being able to party with his fellow graduates in the way he would have liked, he is grateful to his teachers and the parent committee for staging an event that will still be fun and memorable.