CTC is holding their first senior ceremony in the spring. The ceremony will be held May 19, 2022. 

The CTC’s first senior ceremony will be celebrating their seniors at the convention center towards the end of the year. 

“The senior ceremony will be Thursday, May 19 and that’s at 6 p.m. at the Convention Center. Their parents and their sending school board members, principals and guidance counselors will be invited,” Assistant Principal Shawn Cerully said. 

The CTC seniors might be graduating, but the ceremony will not be an official graduation ceremony. 

“It is not a graduation ceremony. It’s specifically not a graduation because we are a career and technology center; we technically can not and do not graduate. They’re earning industry credentials, industry certifications, but they’re not they’re not not graduating from the career technology center,” Cerully said. 

This may be the first senior ceremony; however, in the past, there has been a ceremony for the seniors at the top of their class. 

“In the past, we’ve always had a senior award banquet which honored and celebrated any students who were senior of the year in their class and if they were receiving any extracurricular awards scholarships,” Cerully said.

After years of not having a senior ceremony, the CTC had decided to make this the first one for all seniors at CTC. 

“We wanted to make sure we started acknowledging them not just for their accomplishments, so that is why we decided that we wanted to start doing that this year,” Cerully said. 

Because of COVID-19  last year, CTC did have a senior ceremony to celebrate their seniors virtually. 

“Last year we did have one, but it was virtual. This is technically our second annual senior ceremony even though last year’s was virtual, so it obviously doesn’t carry quite the same weight,” Cerully said. 

The senior ceremony will be one ceremony for all seniors from the 12 high schools that take part in CTC. 

“All of our schools will be a part, so we will have roughly 240 seniors who were celebrating from 12 different sending schools across Blair County and Cambria County,”  Cerully said.

Planning has already started for what it’s going to be like for this year and years yet to come. 

“Planning is going good so far, and I’m sure after this one we will have to make some revisions and talk about what we want to do differently to make it better in the future. It’s always a work in progress,”  Cerully said.

For some students, this is exciting news, and they are happy to be a part of the first senior ceremony. 

“I am grateful to be a part of the first class to a senior ceremony. I feel as though it will be a great experience and a great way to end our high school career,” CTC senior Airalyn McElhinney said. 

This will be a new experience for all the staff and students at CTC as they take part in their first senior ceremony. 

“I feel like it will be an interesting experience for all that’s involved, but I also think the experience will be pretty cool,” McElhinney said