She had been a little nervous Monday morning, too, she admitted.

But as the time neared to head into the arena at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg for her graduation, she was excited rather than nervous.

Did it seem like senior year went by quickly? Brown shook her head.

The year took a long time, she said.

Now, with high school complete, she’ll go to North Carolina A&T State University in the fall to study political science.

Behind her, the rest of the 391 seniors in the class of 2022 were gathered in their red gowns with blue trim, ready to move across the hall for the start of the graduation ceremonies.

Senior year had “been a rollercoaster,” Bryan Asang said as he waited to get in line with his classmates.

Some of the people in the room had been his classmates since they started kindergarten at North Frederick Elementary School, he said.

It was strange to think that he wouldn’t see a lot of them again without making a special effort.

The 2021-22 school year brought students back to school full time, after parts of their sophomore and junior years were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Asang said he prefers in-person learning to virtual, which didn’t provide the full experience of being in high school.

He plans to attend Frederick Community College, where he’ll major in cybersecurity and play basketball.

Class President Raquel Ford agreed that coming back to school for senior year had been hard, although it was exciting to see her teachers.

Along with playing soccer, Ford helped plan school events, arts programs and spirit days to help get her classmates involved, including helping to organize Patriot Army, the school’s student section.

“Like a Patriot, we go into battle together,” she told her classmates later, in a speech during the graduation ceremony.

She’ll go to the University of Maryland in the fall to study business.

Principal Tracey Kibler reflected on what it means to be a Patriot, and on all that the senior class had been through, from COVID-19 to the hundreds of conversations they’d had over the past year about advocating for equity, rights and social justice.

“Your voice was truly patriotic,” she said.

To featured class speaker Lauren Berg, her class was like sea glass, shards that get smoothed by the waves, rocks and sand before being washed up on the beach and used for art and jewelry.

The graduates had each started as a glass bottle but had been broken and tumbled together in the same body of water.

“Now that we have washed up on the sand, we wait to be collected,” she said.