By Brady Brown and Mason Lanhart

The Spring 2021 semester is coming to a close, and with it, a wave of students will be graduating and moving onwards to what one can hope will be bright and beautiful futures. It was in this period of endings that a party was held for the graduating students of the communication department, hosted by Dr. Ronald Gilbert (head of the comm department) on April 15 in the Glen Lowe Dining Room. 

The event began with a speech by Dr. Gilbert who has not been seen on campus for the duration of the semester due to health issues. His speech was a congratulations on the class for the upcoming graduation and a celebration of the growing size of the department. He was followed by J.J. Hulet and Katherine Davis, both fellow professors in the department, who also gave a few words to the students. 

The students, after a meal of tacos, were given a series of awards. The first was the communication studies award and was given to Brady Brown. The next batch of awards were a series of personalized awards given to each of the seniors. Below are some examples: 

• The Folgers Coffee Award, given to Jovanna Romeo for attending the theory and research class at 08 AM every morning despite being in Arizona which is two hours behind. 
• The AAA Driving Award, given to Kyla Long for her excellent driving demonstrated as she attended several of the online meetings while commuting. 
• The ESPN Award, given to Cody Bandy for his persistent and high quality sports writing. 

The students laughed and cheered for their peers as they received their tongue-in-cheek awards. Afterwards was the group photo followed by individual awards.