Bomb Threat at my HS Graduation

Our graduation was supposed to be held outside on the football field. But due to rain forecasted for the afternoon, they made the decision to move it inside to the gym. Each student had six tickets. All six were good for the football field, but if it was inside, only two were good for the gym, two were good for a simulcast in the auditorium, and two were worthless for indoors.

Our parents (or whoever had the two tickets) watched us march into the gymnasium, and we took our seats. Our principal then went to the microphone and alerted us that there had been a bomb threat made on the gym. Everyone was told to evacuate and the decision was made to hold the graduation on the football field. It turned out, the day was gorgeous, sun shining, no rain in sight.

We would find out later that the phone call had been made from the payphone in front of the school. So very likely it was an upset grandparent (or whoever didn’t have a ticket to the gym) angry that the didn’t get to watch! Solution: call in a bomb threat!

The graduation itself ended up being a mess. They didn’t have time to put us in the right seats, so they just told us to sit roughly were we were before. I’d say about 50% of us were in the right spot. Kids were all riled up, and were rowdy. 20+ beach balls were blown up and tossed up. Girls tossed their bras. The principal was booed on stage. People talked all through the speeches by the valedictorian and salutatorians (we had two.) Then, because the diplomas had been left inside because of the bomb threat, they had nothing to hand to us on stage when we walked. Due to the rowdy students, the stress of the bomb threat, and people sitting wherever they pleased, the names being called to cross the stage didn’t match up with who was exactly crossing. They started speeding us up to get across to end this mess of a graduation, so when it was my “turn” to cross, they were still on last names to letters before mine! I attempted to wait, and didn’t walk across until it was actually my turn. My two best friends on the other hand took the opportunity to walk up one after the other, since no one was paying attention to the names anyway. At the end, when we were supposed to process out in an orderly fashion, people just got up and walked away.

In the end, I didn’t mind, and my parents didn’t mind as long I was happy. My personality would typically prefer an organized event, but I was not upset. It was rowdy, unruly, and had a bomb threat, but graduation still meant a lot to me, and I still got what I wanted out of it: a good story and (an hour after the event) my diploma.