Holy Trinity Academy in Okotoks held its grad ceremony on Friday (June 25).

Working within the province's COVID restrictions, faculty were able to throw together an event that bore a close resemblance to typical ceremonies from previous years, albeit all within the halls of the school.

The school's central atrium area held a small stage and podium, with carpets rolled out to lead grads on and off-stage.

A film crew was set up in the library overseeing the live stream broadcast for students to watch in classrooms and for those watching at home.

Following speeches from the school's valedictorian and salutatorian, class cohorts proceeded to the atrium where grads crossed the stage one by one to receive their diplomas from principal Carmen Ostafichuk.

Tahlia Danard, one of HTA's grads, was glad to have gotten a chance to cross the stage, especially after last year's grad was stifled by restrictions.

"I'm glad we got to be here in person and we're not doing online school anymore. It's kind of a relief to be done with that and hopefully moving into university, we can do more in-person stuff and have a bit more normalcy."

Her classmate, Cassie Perreault, saw some irony in the event being held just a week before the province was set to enter Stage 3.

"It's a little bittersweet knowing that right as we're graduating they're opening everything up and that if they'd open up a little bit earlier we could've had a more normal graduation, but the fact that we get to do the things we have today, it's really amazing that the school has put together this much effort into making it as normal as possible for the students."

For Perreault, it almost felt odd to be attending such an event after the year.

"Everything feels a little surreal and it's still like 'is this going to happen? Is it not going to happen?' Even standing here an hour from the time I'm going to walk the stage, I'm still waiting for them to say 'oh, pack up and go home,' because everything has been so unpredictable for so long."