Three Marquette Senior High School students walk down the hall in a scene from The Mining Journal’s “Class of 2023 says thank you video project.” Mining Journal staff visited seven area high schools in Maquette and Alger counties to give graduating seniors an opportunity to thank the people who were most influential during their high school careers. Links to the videos can be found at miningjournal.net. (Journal photo by Lisa Bowers)

MARQUETTE — As the Class of 2023 graduates from high school, they have countless people to thank for helping them reach this milestone.

To share these messages of thanks and gratitude, The Mining Journal embarked on a project this spring to interview and film members of the Class of 2023 to find out who and what they are grateful for as they end their high school journeys and move on to the next phase of life.

These messages of gratitude and thanks are voiced by the graduating seniors in a collection of seven videos — one for each of the participating schools’ graduating class — that are now available on The Mining Journal’s YouTube channel.

“We have an impressive group of seniors graduating in the Class of 2023,” said Journal Publisher Ann Troutman. “It was enlightening and heartwarming to hear what they were thankful for as they approached graduation. Their families and schools should be so proud of their accomplishments.”

The videos — which include messages that run the gamut from heartwarming, to humorous to inspirational — showcase hundreds of young people from the area who graduated this spring.

“We are proud to highlight the voices of the area’s graduating seniors in these videos,” said Journal Managing Editor Bud Sargent. “It’s a great way to salute their accomplishments and wish them the best going forward.”

The videos take a naturalistic approach to documenting the students’ messages. The goal was to realistically portray students as they were on a given day at school — rather than in a studio — with much of the filming completed in the classrooms, libraries and hallways of their schools, largely with natural light and sound.

Some students use the videos to thank their friends or family members. Others say they are grateful for teachers, coaches and school employees who helped them throughout their high school journey. Some thank their pets, some say they are grateful for their communities, and some say they are grateful to themselves for graduating after facing challenging remote learning circumstances amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

While each student and message is unique, the Class of 2023 graduates are united by their resilience in the face of unprecedented challenges, as the pandemic changed the face of learning forever when it hit in spring 2020, when these students were just freshmen in high school.

Overall, the video project aims to honor these graduates while creating a historical record of these Upper Peninsula students who finished high school amid the challenges of the pandemic.

Participating area high schools

High schools throughout Marquette, Alger and Luce counties were contacted to request participation in the graduate thank-you videos by the Journal. A total of seven schools agreed to participate.

The participating schools are:

Gwinn High School

Ishpeming High School

Marquette Alternative High School

Marquette Senior High School

Munising High School

Republic-Michigamme Schools

Westwood High School

Videos are now available online. Readers are encouraged to watch the Journal’s print edition, website and YouTube channel to get access to the content.

Each graduating student who was in attendance on the scheduled filming date was given an opportunity to participate in the video. Students who participated appear in the order they were interviewed.

All graduates from each school are listed in the final credit roll of the video to honor the students who were not able to participate.

Lisa Bowers can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 570. Her email address is lbowers@miningjournal.net.