Providence High School recreates graduation for one student

Two months have passed since Providence High seniors walked across the stage to accept their diplomas, but the majority of the class of 2015 returned to the same stage Thursday night to do it all again.

This time, they walked with their fellow classmate Olivia Menke.

On June 6, Menke was involved in a car accident on the Pacific Coast Highway that left her with a traumatic brain injury.

Three days after the accident, on the day of her graduation, Olivia Menke was under sedation at the UCLA Medical Center while doctors waited for her brain swelling to go down. The graduation ceremony was streamed into her hospital room, but for her 120 classmates, Menke’s absence at the ceremony was significant.

A volleyball and basketball player, Menke earned the distinction of being selected as the class salutatorian with a 4.43 grade-point average. She also won the Mother Joseph Award, which is given to students who embody the first provincial superior of the Sisters of Providence in the West.

Two months after the accident, Menke’s classmates donned their green caps and gowns again and returned to the Hall of Liberty at Forest Lawn, which allowed the school to hold the ceremony for free.

The same programs were handed out, “Pomp and Circumstance” played as the students entered, and the same speeches were delivered — except for some minor tweaks on occasion.

Among them: the emotional standing ovation friends and family gave when Menke arrived on stage.

“Welcome to the graduation ceremony — the sequel — for the class of 2015,” said Head of School Joe Sciuto in his opening remarks.

After Principal Allison Castro read the same poem she did during the first ceremony — Linda Ellis’ “The Dash” — she said the ceremony “feels whole now” as she acknowledged that the difference between the first and the second time was “the support and the love that’s in this room right now,” she said.

The idea to redo the ceremony was student driven, and almost as soon as the notion surfaced, it was already in the works, according to classmate Allison Menendez.

“A lot of us are coming back to help support her and help her graduate,” she said. “We want her to have the same feeling that we had.”

R.J. Godinez, 17, was devastated after seeing Menke in the hospital shortly after the accident.

“As one of her close friends, it’s amazing to see her up and around and with a smile on her face after this whole big thing happened, he said. “Seeing her there after the fact was just devastating. I couldn’t even talk. I can’t even describe the feeling, just looking at her. And now, doing this again, it just feels right. It feels like the perfect thing that we have to do.”

The gesture also meant a lot for Olivia Menke’s brother, Grant, who will be a senior at Providence this fall.

“I know in a lot of schools, it’s just one student out of 800. So, the fact that they would do this, means a lot. It really makes me feel really good about my school,” he said.

After the ceremony, Olivia Menke posed for photos with many of her friends in her cap and gown.

“It’s really relieving and nice to see how much love is around you and the kind of spirit that everyone has for you,” she said.