With the end of a semester typically comes the departure of a number of campus regulars, but at least one is sticking around.

The annual December Graduation Ceremony took place on Friday, Dec. 8. Since the 1862 Lounge, the usual location, is closed as a result of the Campus Center renovation, the ceremony took place in the DVB room instead.

Exercise science major Casey Takahashi and marketing major Sara Judge spoke at the ceremony. At the end of her speech, Judge announced that she has accepted the position of coordinator of digital media at Lakeland.

In his speech, Takashi discussed his transition from his home in Hawaii to Lakeland. “One of the biggest questions I’ve had asked every time I’ve met a new person is, ‘Why did you come to Lakeland from Hawaii?’” he said. “To be honest, I didn’t have a solid answer for that. A lot of times, I said I wanted to experience the winter, and boy, did I choose a wrong answer there.”

Each graduating student was awarded a plaque. They will not receive their diplomas until the end of the spring semester. They are still free to attend the large-scale graduation ceremony at that time.

As provided by Systems & Reporting Specialist Darin Christians, here is the complete list of expected December graduates for Fall 2017:

Jesse Bazile
Joshua Brunner
Charles Carroll
Yuki Chimura
Nathaniel Cooper
Dajuan Darling
Devin Equitz
Tiffany Fischer
Allante Gardner
Benjamin Gerhard
Christian Gillaspie
Bailey Grayvold
Adrian Hackl
Olivia Hansen
Linjiabei He
Angela Herbst
Sara Judge
Jill Keskimaki
Avinash Limbu
Lucas Mandich
Richard Micheaux
Jacob Nault
Matthew Nawa
Adria Noll
Miho Ohashi
Alexa Piskule
Elizabeth Raddatz
Melissa Reise
Kazuma Satoh
Casey Takahashi
Hannah Vassar
Nicole Vercauteren
Jennifer Winkler
Shuka Wong
Kenichi Yamamoto
Tomoyoshi Yasuda
Risa Yoshita