With this past weekend’s graduation ceremonies, Lawrence County schools bid farewell to another class of students.

This year’s seniors give the county many reasons to be proud, from accomplishments in academics to feats on the athletic field.

For instance, at South Point High, two students, Jake Helton and Caleb Pennington will be attending Ivy League schools in the fall. Helton, one of the school’s co-valedictorians, is headed to Princeton to study astrophysics, while Pennington will be attending the University of Pennsylvania to study economics, as well as finance at the Wharton School of Business.

At Ironton High School, principal Joe Rowe said 10 of the school’s 92 students were graduating after scoring higher than a 27 on their ACTs and had netted more than $1 million in scholarship funds.

Nearly half of Symmes Valley’s class were graduating with honors, with 24 of the 55 students finishing cum laude, magna cum laude or summa cum laude.

At Dawson-Bryant, 15 of the graduates represented the National Honor Society, three represented the National Technical Honor Society, and 13 graduating with high honors of honors with distinction.

Rock Hill’s students boasted accomplishments in many fields, while, at Chesapeake, principal Chris Smith praised the community service work done by seniors in addition to their academic accomplishments.

Many of these students have their careers planned out, while some remain undecided on what they want to commit to in college.

The next step of life, of course, will be determined by the students, but their hard work and dedication, along with excellent mentoring by their school’s faculty have given these students a solid foundation on which to build for the future.