215 graduate from kindergarten

By Carrie A. Mizell

If having one’s two front teeth were a requirement for kindergarten graduation, many of Gilchrist County’s 215 kindergarten students would not have been promoted to first grade last week.
Dressed in their Sunday best and grinning from ear to ear, kindergarten students at Bell and Trenton elementary schools walked single file through the doors of their school auditorium last Tuesday and Thursday nights as Pomp and Circumstance played. With their tassels swinging, the students took their seats on stage, but not before giving family members and friends a timid wave.

Trenton Elementary School kindergarten students Kylie Smith, Aubrey Smith
and Rylee Rood walk to the stage during graduation ceremonies last week.

Trenton Elementary principal Riley Deen and Bell Elementary principal Sherry Lindsey spoke to the large crowds gathered at each school offering words of welcome, before saying how faculty and staff want the kindergarten students, who are on track to graduate from high school in the year 2023, to be successful in life.
Kindergarten teachers beamed with pride as they called out each and every student’s name, while the school principals shook hands with the students and congratulated him/her before a picture was taken.
Charlotte Kearney explained that this year’s kindergarten class marks her 25th year teaching kindergarten students at Trenton Elementary School.
“I am now teaching kids who I taught their parents,” Kearney said, with a smile and a shake of her head.
The kindergarten students made their teachers proud as they sang a number of songs at graduation last week including “It is Time to Say Goodbye:”

It is time to say goodbye to all my friends.
It is time to say goodbye to all my friends
It is time to say goodbye
give a smile and wink your eye
It is time to say goodbye to all my friends
Goodbye friends, Yeehaw!

Though similar in sentiment, Bell and Trenton’s kindergarten graduations featured a number of special elements.

BES kindergarten students are shown left to right: Charity Aderholt, Quinn Bass,
Corbin Bennett, Alexxis Brogdon, and Kenleigh Cooper.

At Bell Elementary it was a slide show featuring pictures of each and every graduate taken throughout the school year. To the tune of “Let Them Be Little” and “You Got A Friend In Me” pictures taken on the playground and in each classroom rolled, much to the delight of the kindergarten students featured. Trenton Elementary School offered cupcakes and fruit punch to students and their guests following the graduation ceremony.
As the principals closed out graduation ceremonies, students walked from the stage, where they were greeted by family members, many offering exuberant hugs, and the five little words every 5-year-old wants to hear, “I am proud of you!”