Butler bids farewell to grads
BUTLER TWP — Kachine Fry's day included a trip to Butler Memorial Hospital for X-rays Thursday afternoon, but she still attended Butler High School graduation last night.
Fry was in an automobile accident as seniors left the high school after practicing for commencement. A car hit the passenger side of the vehicle she was riding in. No one else was injured.
“Nothing is broken, but they said it's badly sprained and bruised,” she said, pointing to her right leg and knee, from her wheelchair.
With a little help from her friend Kyle Gandy, Fry got a push to the high school gymnasium, where she used her crutches to get around during the ceremony.
Not many of the 648 graduates at Butler's 123rd commencement will have such a vivid memory of graduation, but other seniors said they were grateful for the friends they'd made in high school. And some said their teachers made a difference for them.
It was a fitting atmosphere for a class that asked, “Who Are We?” as its commencement theme.
“It's a very interesting class,” said Dustin Kepple, 18, of Butler. “You've got all kinds of people you're going to school with.”
Kepple said the friends he made over the years would be the memory he carries with him. He plans to study motorcycle mechanics at the Rosedale Technical Institute in Pittsburgh.
Good friends also were the strongest memory for Hunter Haugh, 18, of Butler, who said 2013 graduates are a “diverse” class.
“My friends were always there for me whenever I needed help,” Haugh said, explaining that he trusts them.
Haugh, a member of the National Technical Honor Society, is already working as an auto mechanic, to earn money for diesel technology school.
Sarah Ganster, 17, of Butler, was with her two best friends as they prepared for commencement. Lindsay Hyatt and Dakota Steele, who are both 18, from Butler, have been Ganster's best friends since junior high school, she said.
Ganster and Hyatt will both attend Butler County Community College, and Steele plans to attend culinary school. They said they'll miss him.Friends were important to Tony Harpel, 18, of Butler, too, who plans to go to Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh to study broadcasting.“I went to Butler Catholic so (coming here) was a big change,” said Harpel, whose class size changed from 23 to 648 when he changed schools.“We all knew how to have fun,” Harpel said of his friends. “There was no drama within my friend group.”Rachel Ellenberger, 18, of Butler, said she'll miss high school, but mainly she'll miss her friends.“Being able to goof off and not having to worry about things,” was her favorite memory of high school, she said. “They always treated me nice, with respect.”Ellenberger will work with the Paul Laurence Dunbar Community Center program this summer and then study nursing at the Community College of Allegheny County in the fall.While Morgan McCurdy, 18, of Butler said she will remember all the homework she had in her honors courses, and Travis Edinger, 18, of Butler, said he will remember the time he spent throwing a javelin in his freshman and sophomore years, students such as Josh Harrison, 18, of Butler, said they'll remember their teachers.McCurdy is going to college at California (Pa.) University, Edinger will attend BC3 and Harrison will study at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College in Erie.Emily Heathcote, 17, of Butler, credits a freshman English teacher for showing her a career path.“My English teacher in ninth grade, (Kevin) Srock, showed me what a class can do for kids when they're treated as individuals,” she said. “I just can't thank him enough.”She'll attend Stetson University, headquartered in DeLand, Fla.
