Ten More Graduation Ceremonies to be at Reynolds Coliseum

Reynolds Coliseum at NC State is again the site of high school graduation ceremonies for the Wake County Public School System.

The 500 graduates and 3,500 people attending the Southeast Raleigh High graduation ceremonies May 26 were the first this year to hold graduation at Reynolds. The coliseum does not have air conditioning and it was a hot night.

Temperatures were in the 90s prior to the 8 p.m. ceremony. Nine persons with heat-releated concerns were treated by Emergency Medical Technicians at the scene.

High school principals are being asked to get the word to graduates and the persons who they have given tickets to attend the ceremonies about the heat and parking.

Persons are being asked to dress comfortably. Principals will work to keep the ceremonies at about 75 minutes in length. They will be directing students to closely follow the plans for before, during and after the ceremony to get people in and out of the building quickly.

At the Southeast Raleigh ceremony, parking flowed relatively smoothly. Traffic must take Hillsborough Street or Western Boulevard to Pullen Road and then Dunn Avenue where they will be directed to the parking deck. There is road construction on campus and some streets are blocked.

Parking may be more of an issue as several ceremonies are held on the same day. Give yourself additional time to make it to the ceremony.

Athens Drive and Millbrook high schools hold ceremonies at Reynolds Friday, June 9. Garner, Green Hope, Leesville Road and Wakefield high schools hold ceremonies Saturday, June 10. Apex, Cary, East Wake and Enloe high schools hold ceremonies Sunday, June 11.

WCPSS administrators are working with NC State officials to make the events as comfortable as possible.

The WCPSS Security Department, NC State Campus Police and Wake County Sheriff's Department will attend the ceremonies. The building will be open to persons with tickets 30 minutes prior to the beginning of the ceremony. Only persons with an admission ticket will be admitted. No laptop computers, packages, artificial noisemakers, balloons, or other disruptive devices will be permitted.

Graduation ceremonies have been held in the air-conditioned comfort of the Raleigh Civic Center since the 1980s. Ceremonies were held in Reynolds Coliseum and Dorton Arena before the civic center was available.

The old civic center has been demolished and the new building is going up. This means that it will be two years before graduation ceremonies are held at the civic center again.

Wake County Public School System administrators found few other facilities available to hold the school system's larger graduation ceremonies this year. Another alternative was the RBC Center, but the Hurricanes had hopes that they would be using the facility.

Posted by Bill Poston at 06:22 PM on May 31, 2006 | Leave Feedback

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