MOUNTAIN VIEW — With a moving of their tassels and throwing their hats into the air, the 2017 MVHS seniors gave a visible show of leaving their youth behind and taking their first steps into adulthood.

Mountain View held its graduation ceremony last Friday in the high school auditorium. The night proved to be a night for the seniors, their parents, teachers and school staff which has guided the students and led them through their years of school to the tip of a new part on life.

Their motto, “Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending,” was fitting for the students as they leave the halls of the high school and move on in their lives to more schooling, jobs, military or whatever they choose as their new avenue of life.

Hannah Behunin, salutatorian, and Chase Smith, valedictorian, thanked their parents and teachers for helping to mold them into the people they had become. Both named classmates and iterated stories of the classmate they named, remembering memories of their times together.

Behunin said, she “would not have wanted to spend the time with any others (besides her classmates)…and know every single person will make a difference.”

She finished with “thank you and good luck…hasta la vista (good bye, see you later).”

Smith also praised his classmates, thanked the coaches, teachers and family and said he “learned what it feels like to be part of a class, a group.” He urged his classmates if they wanted something to go get it, work to make it happen. He noted life is about “the moments that take your breath away.”