Stuarts Draft High School 2024 graduation: Photos

HARRISONBURG — Nancy Campbell tells people she was a teacher and, the first thing many of them say is, "Bless your heart."

Campbell said she has been blessed to have spent time teaching in the Stuarts Draft community, first at the high school and then the middle school.

"Teachers are a strange breed," she told the Stuarts Draft High School Class of 2024 Wednesday night at its commencement. "We don't go into education because it's easy or to get rich or to win awards or for promotions. Teachers choose students. Before we even know you we've chosen you. At times we choose to spent more time with you and on you than with our own families."

Campbell told the audience at James Madison University's Atlantic Union Bank Center that, when she taught, she loved to create bulletin boards. And she was old school, cutting out the letters by hand.

Two of her favorites were an anti-smoking board that said, "Don't be a butthead." The other was a board that said, "Do the right thing because it is the right thing to do."

That's 43 letters, she reminded the audience, plus she said she added an exclamation point. It was a lot of cutting out letters on her part.

"I guess in a way that those two bulletin boards really meant the same thing," Campbell said. "Remember to choose the right thing and you will be able to look into that mirror and see someone you can always be proud of even when there is no reward, no promotion, no bonus, no one watching you. Even if it's difficult, choose to do the right thing."

Stuarts Draft graduated 183 students at the ceremony. Included in that was a posthumous diploma given to the parents of Meredith Furr, a 10-year-old who died from cancer in March, 2016 as a fourth-grader at Guy K. Stump Elementary.

"Meredith, along with the other graduates here tonight, will forever be the SDHS Class of 2024," Stuarts Draft principal Tony Ramsey told the audience.

VALEDICTORIAN

Madelline Belle Baska

SALUTATORIAN

Ainsley Faith Bingyan Clark

CLASS PRESIDENT

Trevor Lee Lockridge

COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER

Nancy Campbell, retired Stuarts Draft High School and Stuarts Draft Middle School teacher and coach

— Patrick Hite is The News Leader's education reporter. Story ideas and tips always welcome. Contact Patrick (he/him/his) at phite@newsleader.com and follow him on Twitter @Patrick_Hite. Subscribe to us at newsleader.com.