With the graduation of the class of 2024 only a month away, a difference may be noted when looking down on this year’s graduates. A decision has been made to remove the white colored graduation gown. Since the first graduating class in 2010, two colored gowns have been available for students to choose between. This makes the 2024 all blue graduating class school history making.

Mixed sentiments are being shared by this year’s seniors over the change. “I’m so upset, I wanted to wear white since my freshman year, it’s very disappointing,” Bella Peppin said.

Others have a different outlook “I’m thanking the lord that I don’t have to try to wear a white dress with a white gown,” Makenzie Powers said.

Many though are simply confused as to why a change was necessary “I don’t understand what was wrong with having the option to wear white!” Kristen O’Shea said.

Vice principal Mr. Peters explains the reasoning behind the controversial change. “There’s a number of different reasons. First, let’s go back to when we started with blue and white. When the school was opened originally, it was kind of thought of as white gowns for the woman and blue gowns for the men. And then we got to a place where some people were like, I want to wear a blue gown, do I have to wear a white gown? And we also had people coming to our school from other places and weren’t sure what color to choose. Some people still held the older mindset that the white was meant as a woman’s gown. So, some guys would be caught off guard like I didn’t intend to wear the white one that’s meant for woman,” Mr. Peters said.

Adding onto this, quality concerns of the white gowns were also an issue. “We went through this deal where we were renting gowns that were better quality. And that worked okay for a while, but there were people wanting to keep their own gowns. So, we took the steps to allow students to buy their gowns and keep them. However, the white gowns were a little translucent so people wearing bright colors underneath would have color showing through their gown. It kind of became a blue gown and then a white with whatever tones they were wearing underneath,” Mr. Peters said.

The final decision was made after first consulting the newly elected senior class officers “We just got to a place where it’s like you can never have enough grizzly blue! So that’s what everybody is wearing, grizzly blue. Even imagining that on the floor is kind of cool and unified. Because we have 4,000 guests sitting above our student section. It used to look like there was scattered loose whites in there, we weren’t trying to spell GP or anything. The thought that it’ll all look unified felt right for us. A unified class, that’s what we want to be,” Mr. Peters said.