PLAINVIEW — Senior-class photos dating to 1951 are grouped on the walls of the Plainview-Rover High School auditorium, built in 1939. The faces of those seniors looked down upon this year's 15 graduating seniors as they marched to the stage in the packed auditorium May 21.
The small senior class at this school in Yell County allows for a personalized graduation ceremony. Each senior picks music, ranging from Tim McGraw to AC/DC, to play in a slide show of their lives. The audience roars with laughter at photos of the students as sticky-faced babies, then watches them progress through kindergarten and gradeschool years. Theslide show finishes off with photos from the 2007 senior trip to nearby Nimrod Lake.
Slideshow
http://www2.arkansa…">Watch an audio slideshow from the graduation
On May 20, the night before graduation, the town held a baccalaureate ceremony at the Plainview Jesus Name Pentecostal Church.
Senior Kala Reece says the graduates have the freedom to plan the baccalaureate any way they want. "We felt it would be more special at a church."During the service, two graduating seniors sang and two others offered prayers at the podium.
Church leaders presented each senior with a Bible inscribed with his name, prayed for the students' success and encouraged them to keep God in their lives.
"Our town itself has only about 800 people so everyone pretty muchknows everyone," says Brent Montgomery, 18, a graduating senior. "Most of us have been here since day one of kindergarten and we ... grew up together and known each other. Our teachers have gotten to know us real well and done a lot of one-on-oneteaching with us. I think it helps us a lot: We learn more that way, we're not just a number."
"I think that us knowing each other and growing up as a class and always having time to stop and help each other will help us in the future," Montgomery says.
Christopher Yates, 18, plans to attend college, then return to his hometown. "I've lived in Plainview, I guess, since I was born. I love the town, I love the people here. It's been great growing up here. The town's real close-knit, everybody knows everybody."
Yates appreciates the small class size at his school: "By the time we're graduating, we're what seems like brothers andsisters. It's more of a family. We're close, we know we can always call one another if we need help."
Also hanging on the wall of the auditorium is Carl Yates' senior portrait with his 1967 graduating class. Now, 40 years later, son Christopher has graduated as valedictorian of the class of 2007.
"He was valedictorian of his class and I was pretty close - I think there was about 20 in front of me," Carl Yates says, confessing that there were only 22 students in his class.
Family, Pages 31, 33 on 05/30/2007