Photos of Blake and Zoid's graduation

Kidsandliz posted some pics said
26

Hi all - here are photos from the graduation. My seat there meant some of the photos are of the projection screen since heads were in the way. He was so happy and the final amount of the gift card - $320 - blew him away (his wife, being very practical, said, “Good. Now we can buy lots of diapers” - his baby is 6 mo, and he adopted his wife’s 3 and 4 year olds). He couldn’t believe strangers would do this. I copied to the card all the messages people asked to have there and put first names only for those who didn’t include a message.

Zoid (his service dog) stole graduation due to his outfit and Blake and his family were beyond thrilled that he could include Zoid in this way. According to his wife and wife’s grandmother your gift to him was a repeated, topic of conversation at his house from the day (Tuesday) he brought Zoid’s graduation gown home through on the way to graduation. They just couldn’t believe a group of strangers would do this for him. I am so glad I overheard him wishing he could do this last term when I had him in capstone. And I am even more thankful that when I posted looking for recommendations for where to get this made people decided they wanted “in”. Together all of you have made this an even more memorable day for him and his family and gave him far more than I could. Thank you.

(for those who missed the original thread it can be found here:
https://meh.com/forum/topics/update-service-doggy-graduation-gown-for-afghanistan-war-vet )

Here he is prior to graduation and before they lined everyone up. It was hot that day - in the 80’s.

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The next bunch of photos are of him getting his diploma. I had to take photos of the screen for most of them because I couldn’t see from where I was sitting.The non-screen one is him with the chancellor talking about Zoid’s graduation gown. (Sorry about the resolution but all I own is an old phone with a crummy camera). For most students that stop was a quick photo and they continued on. In this case they talked briefly.
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The next photos are after graduation when we went back inside and took photos in front of the screen where they took the official photos. I was trying to keep out of the photo all the folks cleaning up which is why some of them are a bit off center. Fortunately on Blake’s phone I managed to take a really nice one for him (but he hasn’t sent that one to me yet). I forgot to straighten Zoid’s mortar cap. Oops.
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Again thank you all for doing this for him. He is very grateful (as am I).