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RAINSVILLE, Alabama — On most graduation nights, the talk is of the future and promises of a bright one.

And there was some of that Tuesday night here at the Northeast Alabama Agri-Business Center.

But for the seniors of Plainview School other themes ruled – community, gratitude, and appreciation of the moment right now.

“I don’t think anyone has experienced what our class has,” said Lacie Kilgore, the salutatorian, in her speech to the crowd of about 2,800.

Graduates sat in folding chairs on wide swaths of carpet over the dirt floor of a building built for rodeos and motocross, not graduations.

“We have changed,” Kilgore said, her speech winding down.

A powerful EF4 tornado cut a 38-mile path through Dekalb County on April 27. It left 33 dead – the second highest county death toll in the state after Tuscaloosa.

Plainview School, a K-12, had been closed that day when the tornado took its roof, destroyed several classrooms and the gymnasium.

More than 200 houses were destroyed in the county. Three Plainview students died, some lost family members, said principal Ronald Bell. Some lost homes and have moved away, he said. But 96 students picked up a diploma Tuesday, such as 19-year-old Jacob Crowell, who remembers waking up from unconsciousness when the tornado turned his family’s mobile home upside down.

“It was pretty rough, but now it’s good,” he said before the ceremony. “I’m graduating.”

It’s a community that knows tornadoes – the sheriff can count 12 in recent years, though none with this type of destruction. But it’s also a community that knows to come together.

“When you look back on all we’ve done, I hope you’re proud,” sang graduating senior Anna Graham, as some in the crowd brushed their eyes.

Neighboring school, and arch-rival, Sylvania, also a K-12 school, offered to allow Plainview students to use its facilities. They worked it out in two shifts – Sylvania students in the morning and Plainview students in the afternoon.

“They may be our rivals on the basketball court or football field, but they are really our friends,” said Graham, 18, who is going to Shorter University on a volleyball scholarship.

It was disappointing, she said, that they couldn’t graduate in their school building. But she said the community really came together to make the graduation happen.

It’s perhaps not surprising for a community, that despite its own troubles, sent a truckload of supplies Monday to Joplin, Missouri, hit Sunday by a tornado that killed at least 122 people.

“So yesterday morning after we heard they got hit, we got a truck and loaded it with MREs and water and personal hygiene supplies,” said county Sheriff Jimmy Harris.

For the young graduates, the community spirit seems to have made a big impression.

“We have just really adapted and take what is given to us and try not to complain,” said Plainview senior Alex Poole, 18.

And so the names were called, one by one. Family and friends hooted and hollered at the moment their favored student officially graduated. But through the tragedy of a tornado it seemed many had already graduated to another level of maturity.

“Every time you talk to someone from here they all say how belongings and things don’t matter,” Graham said. “What I’ve learned is that it really helps to be in a community where the people matter.”

And in the last performance, Bethany Anne Bradley sang, “I’ll take every moment and live it out loud. This is the time of my life.”

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