Warman High School parents gearing up for graduation at the racetrack

Parents of seniors at Warman High School are racing to finalize some details of a rare opportunity and celebration.

With COVID-19 and related public health orders cancelling many graduation ceremonies across the province, the organizing committee of this year’s graduation is partnering with Wyant Group Raceway for a drive-up ceremony on June 26 to celebrate the class of 2020.

Graduates will arrive with family and remain in a designated parking spot at the track. Each vehicle will listen to the ceremony being broadcast via FM transmitter, which will be emceed by the track’s regular announcer.

When it’s time to hand out diplomas, each grad’s vehicle will drive up, let the student out at the stage and pick them up on the other side before taking a victory lap around the track.

Karen Materi is proud her daughter Ashlyn will get to experience the joy of walking across the stage with the support of her classmates and family.

“It’s going to probably change grads for the future, I would think,” she said. “Having that stepping stone to move on to the next part of your life — she’s quite excited about this.”

Materi said even though her daughter’s classmates can’t be close, the ceremony is a perfect opportunity for them to be together for the first time in months.

“So many of them haven’t seen each other since March,” she said. “(It’s important) to kind of have that final closure to their high school (education) before they move on.”

Approximately 110 students will take part in the drive-up graduation.

After tossing around plenty of ideas over the last few months, Materi saw a post on Facebook of a distanced graduation happening at Daytona Speedway, one of the most famous racetracks in the world.

So she thought it wouldn’t hurt to reach out to her friend, Neil Schneider, the marketing manager at Wyant Group Raceway, to see what could be done.

“It came together by fluke, I guess,” Schneider said. “It kind of started like an idea about it and progressed from there.”

Schneider’s own daughter had her graduation ceremony cancelled a few years ago, and knew an empty racetrack is the exact venue to help this crop of students avoid the disappointment he experienced first hand.

“One of the first big celebrated parts of a person’s life is graduation,” he said. “To have that taken away was hard.

“I kind of knew where they were coming from.”

Schneider said all health and safety guidelines will be followed, and parents or guardians will drive to ensure speeds are kept low with no joyrides around the track.

Materi said all of her attention on June 26 will be on seeing Ashlyn receive her diploma. It’s a different approach for her husband.

“As a parent, you look forward to that moment,” she said. “I don’t know if there’s a parent out there that doesn’t look forward to seeing that.

“That will be my favourite part, but for my husband it will be being out on the track — he loves the track.”