The “Decision Day” celebration at Southern Vance High School featured 70 members of the Class of 2016 announcing their plans to attend college in the fall.
Austin Dixon, the college advisor at Southern Vance, coordinated the event which involved having each student to come up and sign a large Class of 2016 banner, announce which college or university they will attend and their intended degree major.
Approximately 20 colleges and universities are represented among the schools they will attend. All major N.C. universities are represented in the group, as are several smaller colleges. Geographically, the furthest university to be receiving a Raider’s graduate is the University of Alabama. Others include UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC Greensboro, UNC Charlotte, UNC Pembroke, N.C. Central, East Carolina, N.C. State, Campbell University, Chowan University, Winston-Salem State, Appalachian State, Valencia College, Johnson and Wales University and Fisher College.
Jonathan Carlock, a 2015 graduate of Southern Vance, also spoke to the group as they enjoyed pizza and refreshments. He talked with them about taking their commitment to attend college seriously, staying on top of their studies and not getting behind on assignments.
“You’ll have a lot of freedom in college,” he said. “But, don’t mess up. Make sure you go to class and stay on top of things. If you fall behind, it’s really hard to catch up. Going to college is expensive. It’s also a privilege and you need to make the most of the opportunity.”
Dixon said that later in the school year, the college bound graduates will write messages on pieces of paper about the next steps in their journeys, place the messages in balloons and then release the inflated balloons on the school’s campus.
“It’ll be really fun to find out where the balloons land and who finds them,” Dixon said.