Patriot High Senior Remembers The People Lost To The Coronavirus

NOKESVILLE, VA — In many of the graduation speeches submitted to Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, high school seniors have looked back with disappointment at how their lives were upended by the coronavirus during their final semester in school. Zoree Jones, who is graduating from Patriot High School in Nokesville, takes the time in her speech to look beyond the lives of herself and her classmates.

Zoree cites Maya Angelou's poem "Still I Rise" as an inspiration. But Zoree embraces the collective in her speech, which she titled "We Rise." Zoree reassures her classmates that they will "rise with renewed hope for tomorrow" as they move on to college or the next chapter of their lives.

While frontline health care workers have deservedly received recognition for the work they do, Zoree honors and remembers the huge number of people who have died from the terrible virus. "We rise to remember those who we have lost," she says.

Although Zoree and her classmates will never forget how their senior years in high school were disrupted by the coronavirus, she worries the lessons of the past few months could be forgotten. When the world moves past this time, she encourages her classmates to remember what they've learned.

One of those lessons is valuing people who demonstrate positive traits in difficult times. "The world needs resilient people who rise up in times of crisis and respond with grace and courage. It needs empathetic people," Zoree says.

Zoree's speech is one of the top speeches submitted by high school students across Virginia that Kaine has posted on his Facebook page and website. The Virginia senator posted Zoree's speech on Monday. Kaine will be posting one high school senior's speech each day through the end of June.

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.

"One of the many groups of Virginians I've been thinking about during this challenging time is the graduates of the class of 2020, many of whom won't have the graduation experience they've been planning for a long time," Kaine said in a statement.

Zoree closes her graduation speech with a suggestion that applies to everyone in the age of coronavirus, not just the class of 2020. "Be patient and kind to yourself as we all navigate a place where we haven't been before," she says. "We'll rise with renewed hope for tomorrow."