Having a Sunday night graduation ceremony in the middle of major storm didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of Sprayberry High School’s Class of 2026.
One senior even clicked his heels in mid-air after jumping with joy upon getting his diploma.
As the rain pounded the ceiling of the KSU Convocation Center, Sprayberry seniors concluded the Cobb County School District’s commencement schedule with a considerable list of accomplishments.
More than 200 of them had grade-point averages of 3.5 or higher, and 143 took part in dual enrollment programs for college credits. Nearly 200 will be heading to four-year college programs soon.
Sprayberry also had one of the single-highest GPAs in Cobb in valedictorian Payton Pace, whose 4.813 total was third in the entire school district.
Yellow Jackets athletes also stood out in the district, with 37 signing college scholarship offiers—the most of any school in the county.
“These are representative of more than trophies and titles,” principal David Church said. “They represent commitment, discipline and the courage to pursue excellence.”
But he told Sprayberry seniors that they should get accustomed to regarding their legacy, and their lives to this point, as unfinished—in a good way.
He noted that’s the theme of this year’s Sprayberry yearbook, and for a compelling reason.
“Unfinished is a great way to describe where you are right now,” he said. “It’s just the beginning of your story.
“It’s proof that your life is not something that you ever finish. It’s something that you continuously build, revise and grow into.”
Pace’s academic journey is a prime example.
Homeschooled until the sixth grade, Pace told her classmates that she came to Sprayberry as a freshman four years ago lacking confidence and doubted she could aspire to her dreams.
“But fear has a funny way of either stopping you or pushing you,” said Pace, who will be enrolling at Emory University. “And for me, it pushed. So I worked a lot.
“Success is rarely about being naturally talented. It’s about commitment. It’s about deciding what matters to you and continuing to show up for it, even when it’s difficult.”
Church said that “the most meaningful lives are not the ones that are perfectly finished. They are the ones that are courageously unfinished.”
Pace added that the only way to pursue such a life is to embark upon it without reservation.
“You have to be willing to work for the life that you want,” she said. “Chase the thing that excites you, even if it scares you. Because fear will tell you all of the reasons why you shouldn’t do something.
“But dedication proves that you can succeed.”
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Related:
- Walton graduates implored: ‘Invest in others, ‘pay it forward’
- Kell graduates asked to remember: ‘None of us got here alone’
- Lassiter graduates told to ‘throw yourself into that dream’
- Cobb schools announce 2026 valedictorians and salutatorians
- Wheeler graduates urged to ‘look uncertainty in the eye’
- Pope graduates told to ‘make moments of influence count’
- Cobb schools budget approved; Timber Ridge ES principal named
- Kell HS students recognized as Student Emmy Award winners
- Hightower Trail MS named Georgia Military Flagship school
- East Cobb PTA names Margie Hatfield Scholarship recipients
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