HERSHEY, Pa. — Milton Hershey High School seniors received an early sendoff from Milton Hershey Elementary and Middle School students Wednesday morning, as they prepare to graduate.
The seniors returned to the schools where they came up in the Milton Hershey education system, parading the schools in their caps and gowns and receiving high fives from the schools' current students, as well as hugs from their former teachers.
For the seniors, returning to their former schools to be greeted by versions of their past selves was a full-circle moment.
"I used to be one of them at one point," said senior Mohammed Bamba. "So now that I get to be the person they get to look up to, it just makes you have a better outlook on life. And just I want to be there for all these kids, even when they graduate too."
The seniors received pictures of their past selves from teachers from when they attended the schools. The seniors at the elementary school wore name tags for former teachers to remember them after seven years away.
"They always stuck by me, and it just really meant a lot for everybody to be here for me," said Bamba when asked about seeing his former teachers. "They all knew I was gonna make it even when I thought I wasn't gonna make it."
Of the 48 seniors who visited the elementary school, 14 of them had been in the Milton Hershey school system since pre-K through high school.