Ashburn Senior Wins Graduation Speech Contest: "We Did It"

ASHBURN, VA — A Briar Woods High School student's graduation speech has been featured on U.S. Sen Tim Kaine's Facebook and website as part of Kaine's "Everybody's the Graduation Speaker" video contest.

Kaine posted a speech by Lasata, a member of the class of 2020, Wednesday afternoon. In her speech, Lasata thanked all essential workers, doctors, nurses and "people who spread good news."

"Your tireless effort, relentless work ethic and full hearts do not go unnoticed," she said.

Lasata also congratulated 2020 graduates from kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school, college and grad school. For her peers, she called the occasion "graduation from the toil and hardship of this situation."

"These few precious months are our last as kids before we head out into the real world," she said.

Reflecting on her four years in high school, Lasata recalled playing Minecraft, watching the royal wedding, recording TikToks and taking virtual classes via zoom.

"These memories still hold true, even in light of current events," she said. "We have gone through some of the wildest global events in modern history, and we did it in high school."

Kaine will post one high school senior’s speech each day over the next month and a half.

With many in-person high school graduations postponed or canceled due to the coronavirus, Kaine encouraged Virginia’s graduating high school seniors to submit a video of an original speech they would like to give at graduation. Kaine said he felt a sense of loss for the graduates and wanted to give all high school seniors in Virginia the chance to be a graduation speaker.