By East Benton County Historical Society

On May 14, 1920, exactly 100 years ago this month, Kennewick High School graduated its 13th class with festivities and ceremonies marking the occasion.

Kennewick graduated its first class in 1908, and this year marks its 113th graduating class.

The tradition of graduation ceremonies, complete with pomp and circumstance, the senior processional, caps and gowns and awarding diplomas, marks a rite of passage in Kennewick and at other high schools across the country.

Each year high school seniors anticipate the conclusion to 12 years of study, beginning with the classrooms and playgrounds of grade school. The pageantry of high school graduations is a late spring ritual.

Not this year. The coronavirus pandemic has left in its wake widespread cancellations of annual events and ceremonies.

This year’s 2020 graduates will be honored in the minds and hearts of loved ones for their achievements, and individual efforts will be made to celebrate the moment, but this year’s graduating seniors won’t be able to participate in the traditional graduation pageantry in auditoriums, gymnasiums, coliseums and outdoor arenas.

Their graduating predecessors a century ago shared the camaraderie when the 25 members of the 1920 graduating class gathered in the auditorium.

There are many differences in the century-separated classes, but like this year’s senior class, those in 1920 also were in school when a worldwide health crisis struck and millions died from a viral flu that spread across borders, continents and oceans. And, like this year’s class with volunteer efforts to help with different causes during their four-year high school tenure, those from 1920 did the same.

With American soldiers sent to fight at Flanders Fields in France during World War I, students at Kennewick High put together packages to be sent to the American troops and pursued other efforts to support them.

Yet the spring of their graduating year proceeded on course for the walk across the auditorium stage for a diploma and handshake of congratulations.

It was highlighted first at the Junior-Senior Banquet where the 1920 and 1921 graduating classes officially bid their farewell to one another.

Guests dined on roast chicken with plain dressing, birds’ nest potatoes, green olives, hearts of lettuce with thousand island dressing, Brick ice cream, coffee and mints. The banquet featured songs, addresses and presentations, including music. The school orchestra played, “Backward, Turn Backward, O Tune, in Thy Flight.”

Greetings were made by junior Allie Smith, with Velma Given offering the senior response. The school yell was led by senior Ward Johnson, and the passing of the gavel between the two classes was presented and accepted.

The 1920 seniors were sent out with a refrain of promise and hope from their junior counterparts: “We’ve made with you pals, good and true. You’ll hate to leave it all behind and go and find some place that’s known to God alone, just a spot to call your own. You’ll find perfect peace where joys never cease. Out there beneath a kindly sky, you’ll make a wonderful quest somewhere in the west and don’t forget your high school days gone by.”

For the Kennewick High School Class of 1920, graduation ceremonies began with the Senior Processional on a Friday evening beginning at 8 p.m. Under the watchful eye of parents, family, Kennewick High Principal Edith A. McBride and Superintendent of Schools Hamilton H. Hoffman, the event included among the 25 graduates, its class president, Given, and secretary, Floyd Hutchins. Four of the graduating seniors were noteworthy for carrying four-year grade averages above 90 percent. They were Maybelle Bass, Merville Bergman, Neil Johnson and Norma Terrill.

Their class motto was, “Don’t stare up the steps of success, but step up the stairs,” and their class colors of blue and gold were accentuated by the class flower, the white rose bud.

Following the processional, ceremonies began with an invocation by the Rev. H.J. Wood, followed by a solo, “In the Springtime,” sung by Mrs. Semon, conductor of Kennewick High’s Girls Chorus. The high school chorus performed German composer Felix Mendelssohn’s “The Lord is Great,” and British composer Sir Frederick Hymen Cowen’s “Bridal Chorus.” Later, the Girl’s Chorus performed “Carmena,” a piano composition by H. Lane Wilson and arranged by Mary Elizabeth Clark.

The major address of the graduation ceremony was given by Mrs. Josephine C. Preston on “The Emergency in Education.”

Then came the presentation of diplomas by F.L. Fraser and the seniors marched into the history of Kennewick High School, as will their 2020 successors, all proud graduates.