Commentary: Graduation may be virtual, but the Class of 2020 is the real deal

ORLANDO, Fla. — Bob Leatherow is a real trooper.

No, really. He’s a 22-year veteran state trooper of the Florida Highway Patrol, cruising the 72-mile stretch of I-95 in Brevard County and its surrounding roadways, chasing bad guys and keeping the rest of us safe.

But the 50-year-old sergeant and shift supervisor is also a trooper in the eyes of his daughter, Abby, who just graduated from the University of Central Florida cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in communication.

She’s already landed a job, leveraging a spring internship at a Kissimmee marketing firm into an accounts manager position.

Abby is one of my students -- and she and Bob were robbed.

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They were ripped off by a microbe 1/900th the size of a strand of hair that has brought the world to its knees, killing more than a quarter-million people around the globe and driving all of us into our homes.

That means this spring, the crowning moment of a college student’s life -- graduation -- has gone virtual.

We hover over our phone screens, tapping out congratulatory emojis, hoping our beloved grads see them as they sit in the living rooms of their far-flung homes, dressed in their caps and gowns instead of victoriously marching into an arena packed with adoring fans and "Pomp and Circumstance" filling the air.

See a special message to the Class of 2020 from Channel 9 below:

VIDEO: Congratulations to the Class of 2020! WFTV wants to wish the Class of 2020 the best as they embark on the next chapter of their lives. You did it!

Abby was one of 583 students in UCF's Nicholson School of Communication and Media who graduated Saturday. And they were among 8,500 UCF students who earned degrees -- a new spring record for the university.

As a university community, we watched, we cheered, we "liked" as the names were read -- all online from the safety of our homes, with the promise of a real face-to-face celebration at a later date.

Photos: WFTV Channel 9 senior class pictures

The thing is, as Abby’s professor, I feel robbed, too. As faculty, we love celebrating our students on their big day. For me, what’s even more special is meeting and thanking the parents of my students at graduation.

They’re the ones who send their kids to my classroom, who entrust me with their care, who pay a big part of my salary. It’s a sacred relationship.

So, as with everything else with this year’s virtual graduation, I had to meet Abby’s dad, Bob Leatherow, through two of the modern miracles of our age -- Facebook and Zoom -- instead of over cookies and lemonade at our usual grad reception on campus.

What a guy.

To celebrate his daughter's big moment, he worked out something special with Robin Leatherow, Abby's mom and his ex-wife.

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Together they organized a parade of family and friends, complete with state trooper vehicles with lights flaring and sirens blaring.

The entourage showed up and surprised Abby at the Rockledge apartment complex where she's riding out the pandemic with her mom.

“The cool thing was that everybody in that neighborhood was out smiling, waving, they were filming and being supportive,” Bob Leatherow said. “We were going full tilt. We did the lights, the sounds, everything. They all thought it was great.”

Leatherow said he was “bummed” about not being able to attend a real college graduation, even as he understands and appreciates the priority placed on public safety.

He’s feeling doubly bummed because his son, Douglas, is also about to graduate virtually from Viera High School.

But Leatherow also maintains perspective about what graduation -- virtual or otherwise -- really means.

"It's an accomplishment and recognition of Abby's hard work and how far she's come down this road of life after 21, going on 22 years," he said. "Time goes like that. When you have a child, they are a barometer of time."

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I was intrigued by that phrase "barometer of time" and asked him to elaborate.

“I think this (pandemic) experience, if anything, will definitely strengthen them and toughen them,” Leatherow said of Abby and her graduating class. “I see them as very strong, and I see this as making them stronger. This will press them to do more because this is an unprecedented time. I’ve never seen anything like this. I think this will make them stronger and make them work that much harder for what they want. And what I want for Abby and all of the Class of 2020 is for them is to keep going forward, keep charging on, keep learning more and focus on your dream. Find that one thing that you really love to do and give it all you’ve got. You will not be disappointed.”

Disappointment. It's what another parent and her graduating daughter were feeling down in Miami.

Maria Cuevas, 50, owns and operates her own medical billing business.

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Her daughter, Dani Medina, also graduated Saturday and was my student in the same class with Abby Leatherow.

Like Abby, Dani is graduating with a job in hand. She’s headed to USA Today, the giant newspaper and online news network, to join its digital optimization team as a web editor.

“Her graduation feels like I’m graduating all over again,” said Cuevas, who earned a degree in elementary education from Florida International University. “I feel like I am graduating. I was here screaming. I was so proud. I’m her No. 1 cheerleader. But it was also so sad. I was expecting to go there (to Orlando) and be with her. She was very sad. She was devastated. It was like the end of the world for her. It was a sad moment.”

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But Cuevas also takes heart when she considers Dani’s future as a journalist and the resilience the Class of 2020 possesses.

This is, after all, the generation whose first TV images were of the smoldering rubble of the World Trade Center on 9/11 and who watched many of their parents lose their jobs and homes during the Great Recession.

"Dani was in kindergarten during 9/11," Cuevas told me as she described her daughter. "She is passionate about what she does and what she has studied. She has always wanted to be a journalist since she was a little girl. She always loved to write, to edit stories. She's bright. She knows what she's doing. The passion she has for what she likes, that's priceless. … I feel like this is a wake-up call for them, living through this pandemic. It's going to help them be stronger for whatever else comes along the way. They're going to know how to handle situations like this. When I was growing up, I never had anything like this that I had to deal with. I feel like they are going to be stronger than we were."

In short, they will be troopers.

Rick Brunson is a senior instructor of journalism at UCF and newsroom writing coach for WFTV Channel 9.

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