BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Maine — With the steady drumbeat of the community band setting the pace, Sydney Blake and Gryffin Kristan stepped through the gym door. Blake, in a white gown and Kristan, in white tuxedo, led the Boothbay Region High School senior class in the 2023 Grand March.
The march is a graduation tradition in the small school that school officials say has been taking place for at least 100 years.
"My entire family has done the Grand March," Allen Crocker, assistant principal and the faculty organizer of the event for the past ten years, said.
"My father, my father-in-law, my brothers and sisters, in-laws. My mother, when she went here, she did the Grand March."
The march has the seniors line up initially as couples, then parade in an intricate series of patterns around the gym, all to the march music from the band.
The pattern sometimes shifts to four abreast, and even eight, then goes to individuals in "double diamond" patterns and eventually concentric circles that tighten and then expand. The full cycle of the march lasts well over 20 minutes.
And while it might seem like a throwback to earlier generations, the student leaders who set the pace say it means a lot to them and the community.
"It's exciting," Blake, senior class president, said. "We’ve come and watched the other kids do it [in the past]. And it's fun to look forward to doing it. Sometimes you’re like, 'Oh I don't want to do it, but in the end, it's good to do it."
Kristan, the student body president, admitted he wasn’t always excited about doing the March.
"When I was younger, I didn’t want to do it, but as you get older you’re more part of the community and, 'Oh this is a cool and unique thing, I want to be part of,'" Kristan said after the march practice.
Generations of Boothbay Region graduates have done the march, and those from Boothbay Harbor High School did it before the regional school was formed. The alumni association helps organize the annual event, held this year the night before graduation.
The ceremony drew a crowd of people from the community, as well as parents of the graduates who also marched to their seats before the students entered.
But despite the long popularity of the Grand March, there are still worries that time and changing attitudes might catch up with the tradition. The president of the alumni association urged parents and students to continue supporting the Grand March tradition in years ahead.
"We ask all of you in the upcoming years to join forces with us to keep this tradition sacred, as it has been for many years."
This year’s seniors appear convinced the march is worth preserving.
"I’ve got to be honest," Grace Campbell said, " I didn’t really want to do it when I first heard of it, and now that I’m doing it it’s a lot of fun."
Several said they have come to appreciate how much the march tradition means to many older residents.
"My grandmother was talking about watching her daughter and son do it, and how important it is to watch me, her grandchild, do it. So it's definitely important to a lot of old folks and alumni as well," Ryan Clark said.
"I think classic small-town tradition is something our town values," Kristan said.
Their teacher, advisor, and Grand March alumnus Allen Crocker said if you ask the community, there’s no question the march will last.
"You have people with no graduates, have had no kids in school forever, and they still show up to watch the Grand March."