It's safe to assume the Class of 2020 won't be taking much for granted as high school disappears in the rearview mirror.

"The way our senior year ended was incredibly unexpected," Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn senior Joseph Ahlers told his fellow classmates during Sunday's commencement ceremony. "This pandemic taught us that at any moment your life could change completely. It made us realize how important all of our memories truly are and how important the people we made those memories with are to us."

After a two-month delay, H-M-S was finally able to send off its senior class with a mostly traditional ceremony. There was no choir, graduates sat six feet apart on the gym floor and some audience members donned masks, but the event marked a brief return to normalcy during a year that was anything but standard.

The senior class hadn't been together in the same spot since Friday, March 13. Classes were suspended on Monday, March 16 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, subsequently shifting the curriculum to online learning only. However, school officials were able to push forward with commencement after certain restrictions were lifted in late spring.

The special moment wasn't lost on Ahlers, the class valedictorian. He reminded students the pandemic couldn't strip them of the memories they spent 12 years making prior to mid-March.

"All the final memories that we thought we were going to have completely changed all because of the coronavirus," he said. "I know most of us would have never imagined a global pandemic would happen during our lifetime; however, despite all the uncertainty and chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, something I would have never have imagined happened: It ironically brought us closer together."

Ahlers urged his classmates to remember those who helped them throughout their lives and reminded them to learn from their mistakes, not dwell on them.

"These lessons should not be remembered as failures," he said. "We learn from the stupid mistakes we made in high school in order to not make those same mistakes after high school...you have a lot of life left, don't let four years of your life dictate 40."

Sharing a similar message, salutatorian Savanna Handy encouraged her fellow classmates to take in the moment while also acknowledging how much things were about to change. The former Clay Central/Everly student spent only three semesters at H-M-S before classes were suspended and noted the prospect of being the "new kid" was something each graduate was about to face.

"I was never the new kid before this year, and many of you may know what it's like to be in one place your whole life," she said. "As much as today's ceremony marks a long-awaited ending, it also marks a beginning – a beginning for each and every one of you as the new kid. Whether you're staying in your hometown or moving out of Iowa altogether, whether you're going to college or going to work, things are going to be different."

Regardless of what life throws at them, Handy believed the Class of 2020 was ready for whatever lies ahead thanks to the school year's tumultuous end.

"We've all seen firsthand just how much things can change in a matter of months, weeks and even days," she said. "Instead of looking backward or looking forward, look where you are now – look where we all are now. Today's ceremony is a pivotal moment in our lives. Are you wasting it worrying what you did yesterday or worrying about what you're doing tomorrow? I hope not."

NICK PEDLEY/SENTINEL-NEWS

Newly-minted graduates turn to face the crowd after turning their tassels.

Handy felt the strangely-timed commencement ceremony was the perfect bookend to the strange school year.

"Today's ceremony is probably not how any of us would have pictured it, but I am grateful for it nonetheless. I couldn't imagine a normal ending to this abnormal year," she said. "You all have the potential to do great things, and I can't wait to see them."