On Saturday, 165 McCallie School students received diplomas during a graduation ceremony held at the school’s Spears Stadium.
According to a news release, the in-person ceremony was held outdoors with restricted numbers of attendees due to coronavirus. The graduates and their families underwent temperature screenings prior to entering campus and were required to wear masks and maintain social distancing throughout the ceremony.
McCallie 1980 graduate and board chairman James Ruffin along with head of school and 1997 graduate Lee Burns and other school officials presented diplomas.
According to the release, Burns told graduates that the symbol of 2020 is a mask.
“The masks, of course, help protect you and especially others, but they also hide us, and hinder us. While I want you to wear a literal mask until the pandemic subsides, I don’t want you to wear a figurative mask when you leave McCallie,” Burns said. “It’s tempting to give in to the need to be someone else different than who you really are. We can wear masks to hide our true selves, to hide our fears and failings behind a stoic face, to hide emptiness behind achievements, to sacrifice our passions for something more staid. In short, we can lose our authentic selves when we put on masks. We can become a shadow of who God designed us to be, and calls us to be.”