Inside the gymnasium at Ross Beatty High School, parents, students and teachers sat patiently, anxiously waiting for the graduating class of 2011 to file in, draped in their blue and white gowns.

As the graduates took their seats at the forefront of their families and friends, what began was a time-honored tradition, an emotion felt by many graduates who have come before.

But despite tradition, the day belonged to the class of 2011.

“I am the luckiest valedictorian in the world,” Anna Bosler said in her reflective speech to her peers. “Because of you, my classmates, I am able to be all the things that I can be.”

Lila Cox also addressed graduates, recalling her experience as part of the graduating class and she offered some advice.

“Your sense of worth should come from within,” she said. “Not from the opinions of others.”

Despite any challenges that may have been felt over the course of four years of high school, Cox told her class: “something inside you drove you to keep pushing on … that is what it takes to succeed in life.”

The challenges, Cox told her classmates, would continue as the class of 2011 enters a struggling workforce, economic fragility and what is expected to be higher college tuition debt.

Still, she said, she hoped to see her graduating class “make the changes necessary” for a better world.

One of the ceremony’s more inspirational moments, however, came from guest alumni speaker Sandra Pompey Larkin, a member of the class of 1967.

“(Today) is a day you worked 13 years to achieve. And it’s a day like no other in your life,” she said.

As she addressed the graduating class, Pompey Larkin pointed out some of the seniors she’d had a chance to speak with prior to their graduation day, including Katlyn Grumm, a member of the National Honor Society and an honors student.

Pompey Larkin told the audience her grandson’s life was saved when Grumm helped pull him out of a pool.

“He was already underwater,” she said, “when Katlyn pulled him out. She saved my grandson’s life.”

One by one, she told the audience a little more about the students and the people they aspire to be, college bound and reflected on what they had faced during their high school careers, including divorce and near -fatal car accidents.

But the moment turned especially powerful when Pompey Larkin told a bit of her own story.

Dressed in a ceremonial black graduation gown, like those of members of the Cassopolis Public Schools Board of Education behind her, Pompey Larkin told graduates why their day meant something to her.

It was in her senior year, 1967, Pompey Larkin said, she became pregnant. Nearing graduation and an honors student, Pompey Larkin’s time inside the halls at Ross Beatty High School was cut short.

“In 1967, if you were pregnant, you had to go,” she said.

With just a few requirements keeping her from her diploma, Pompey Larkin said it was one of her teachers and a guidance counselor who helped her complete her high school education, sending her homework through the mail.

There were moments, she said, “I was so lonely I thought I would die.”

Though she finished high school, Pompey Larkin didn’t make the same ceremonious walk with her classmates in her own commencement.

But in a testament to what is achievable, she said, “God has a bigger plan for you than you can imagine, and 43 years later, my God is restoring everything I missed.”

The audience erupted into applause and the speaker also received a standing ovation before the class of 2011 followed in her footsteps, receiving their diplomas and looking toward the future.