Noxon celebrated their 2020 graduating seniors with a town-wide parade following the ceremony on Sunday. The graduation parade, which was organized by parents of the students, was led through the community by a fire truck.

As parents, family and friends gathered around town to cheer on the class of 2020, the 20 graduates assembled in decorated cars and rallied through Noxon, celebrating their Red Devil pride one last time.

The parents elected to celebrate the class of 2020 in a unique way, after the decision was made by the Noxon School District to hold a private ceremony due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rhonda Horner, the Noxon School principal, said immediate family members of graduates were the only guests invited to the ceremony. "We were weighing the options to do an in-person and public ceremony, but we had to run all plans past the local health department first," Horner said.

As the option to hold a public ceremony was discussed, the school district opted against that decision in order to keep everyone as safe as possible. "We knew we were going to have a ceremony, we just weren't sure what is was going to look like," Horner stated.

As plans were set in motion, the school district wanted to keep the private ceremony as traditional as possible. "The ceremony will look very similar to what it should normally look like," Horner said before the ceremony. "We will still have speeches from the valedictorian, the salutatorian and a guest speaker."

While a private, socially distanced graduation ceremony may not be what the graduating class had in mind, the seniors have been in pretty decent spirits about it all. According to Horner, "They were just really excited to see each other again."