The Haywood High School Reach Academy held its December graduation ceremony on December 17 for 19 students who are early graduates of the HHS Class of 2014. Participating in the ceremony that took place at Sunny Hill Innovative Learning Center were Superintendent Teresa Russell, Deputy Superintendent Vincent Harvell, HHS Principal Jerry Pyron, and the Class of 2014 President Justice Brown. Hosts for the event were Director of the REACH Academy Drayton Hawkins and REACH Graduation Coach Stephen May.

Earning Valedictorian honors in the class was Adriana Caletre. Lanqueya Hess was Salutatorian of the Class. The other graduates were Ismael Aguirre, Dalvin Bailey, Shaniece Bufford, Martez Comage, Keundra Gibbs, Darvis Jarmon, Ibrahim Jobeh, Jessica Johnson, Montravious Jones, Jose Lemus, Amente Mans, Whitney Mitchell, Jasmine Perry, Devante Taylor, Ricky Taylor, James Whitelow and Chassidy Worles.

James Whitelow received a $500 scholarship from Vincent Harvell, representing the Leadership Haywood County Class of 2013.

Guest speaker for the ceremony was Dexter G. Moragne. He is a 35-year U. S. Postal Service employee and is Pastor of St. Luke Baptist Church in Covington, Tennessee, where he has served for 24 years. He congratulated the graduates on completing this challenge and gave them a message from the real world, encouraging them to set goals and work hard.

Guests representing the city, county, Board of Education and Haywood County Schools Central Office joined a packed house of family and friends who came to celebrate with the graduates.

The REACH program offers an innovative, rich, rigorous and engaging program designed to address the individual academic and developmental needs of the program’s students. REACH is an acronym for Receiving Educational Academic Credits Hastily. This allows those students who have gotten behind in their course work to catch up and graduate on time. The program also ensures that each of our students has been accepted into a post secondary program before graduation. The REACH program has two main objectives: 1) Increase the graduation rate of the students attending Haywood County Schools. 2) Decrease the dropout rate of students attending Haywood County Schools. In order for a student to graduate from the REACH program, they must have completed all requirements as set forth by the Tennessee State Department of Education.