A series of lightning strikes from a slow-moving storm system forced Boerne ISD officials to halt Thursday’s Boerne High School graduation, opting to resume the ceremony Friday morning.
School officials said Thursday’s delay — forcing about half of its senior class to cross the stage Friday morning — was the first time a graduation ceremony had been delayed or postponed.
Dark clouds began moving over the Boerne ISD Stadium at about 7:45 p.m. Thursday, just minutes before the graduation ceremony started. Once the ceremony got underway, intro- ductions were made, speeches were delivered, and Boerne Principal Shane Wilson began handing out diplomas.
About half of the graduating class crossed the stage Thursday before school officials were forced to shut things down.
An official briefly explained to the crowd and the students seated before them, that an approaching storm cell was casting lightning, and that the ceremony would need to be halted until the threat dissipated.
Students were ushered off the field and into the Boerne High auditorium, while spectators were removed from the stands and asked to return to their vehicles.
“There was a big (weather) cell sitting just north of town, and we just couldn’t get the lightning to move,” Wilson said in the Boerne High auditorium, minutes after delivering the news of a postponed graduation ceremony to the stunned senior class.
Wilson said a weather standard applies to every outdoor school activity: If lightning strikes within a 10-mile radius, the event is halted and a 30-minute waiting period begins. Any subsequent lightning strike restarts the 30-minute clock.
BISD never even got close to 30 minutes, he said.
“It’s been doing that ... we literally haven’t gotten a couple minutes into the 30 minutes before it resets,” Wilson said.
The school’s executive team, he said, was “running through every scenario we could imagine” before deciding on the 9 a.m. Friday resumption.
Doors opened at 8:15 a.m. Friday for the 9 a.m. resumption. There were no speeches or introductions: “We will walk the stage only,” Wilson had said Thursday night.
Friday’s ceremony resumed with bright sunshine overhead, but a reduced number of students in seats and far fewer people in the stands. Nevertheless, the district proceeded and gave its remaining seniors their well-earned — but slightly delayed — diplomas.
Comment
Comments