Brooks: Hard lives led to hard-won diplomas for these Minnesota high schoolers

The harder the road to graduation, the bigger the celebration.

A celebration was what drew dozens of gowned and grinning high school seniors together at the University of Minnesota’s McNamara Alumni Center on a warm Friday evening.

Every book, every pop quiz, every remote lesson during the pandemic brought the class of 2025 to this moment. Diplomas are earned, not given.

This was the annual Recognition of Success Ceremony — a party thrown every year by Hennepin County, the YMCA, and Connections to Independence. Everyone in the hall knew how hard life had been for these students, and how hard-earned these diplomas were.

For these students, drawn from school districts and classrooms across three metro counties, the road to graduation was like an obstacle course.

“I never really got to be a child, growing up,” said Hannah DeVowe, 19, one of the newest graduates of Monticello High School.

Adopted from Liberia at age 2, she was one of five children brought to Minnesota from around the world by a couple she remembers as abusive and neglectful. Their schooling was sporadic. The children spent more time working for their father, she said, or caring for the younger siblings he continued to adopt. By the time DeVowe was 10, her adoptive mother had left the family. Eventually, their adoptive father ran afoul of the law and DeVowe and her siblings entered the foster care system.

Imagine studying for a biology midterm after that. Imagine coming through all that pain and sorrow as the kind, confident young woman who took the stage Friday to speak, not just to her fellow graduates, but to younger students still working toward a day like this.

“My message for the younger folks who are either struggling or having doubts or about maybe not graduating,” DeVowe said in a message Hennepin County shared online. “You don’t have to have it all together. Give yourself grace and allow yourself time to think things through. You’re going to make it.”

More than 100 students whose lives have intersected with county services — from social workers to foster families to probation officers — earned high school diplomas this month. Not all of them made it to the celebration they had earned, but those who did arrived with heads high and eyes on a brighter future.

Teen parents processed into the auditorium with their babies in their arms, snatching at the tassels on their caps. There were graduates who had grown up in foster care, switching schools with each new placement. There were youngsters who earned their GED while incarcerated, working to make sure that a mistake they made as a kid wouldn’t define their entire life.

Hennepin County Commissioner Angela Conley, a social worker and repeat commencement speaker, said she looks forward to this ceremony every year.

“What we do in this ceremony is honor and recognize that these young people, these youths, have achieved greatness – and they need to know that,” she said. “These youths have gone through trauma and so many things that the world just throws at them. Yet they show up in a cap and gown, and they walk across that stage. That is moving to me. I’m getting chills just thinking about it.”

The students themselves planned this party. They chose the decorations, the gifts for the gift bags, the dinner menu and even the red tassels on this year’s graduation caps.

Most students then personalized their caps with glitter or ribbons or their messages of pride and hope to the world. It was the only graduation party some of them were going to get, and they were going to make the most of it.

DeVowe got this far thanks to the love of her siblings, the support of caring social workers and teachers and the help of friends who remind her work and school is important, but it’s not all there is to this life. Sometimes, you deserve to celebrate.

“Maybe sometimes put your books down,” her friends would remind her. “Maybe sometimes go and get some ice cream. Go to the lake.”

Now it’s the end of high school and the start of something new. Some of the new graduates will continue on to more schooling. Others will start their careers. DeVowe, who has dreamed of a career in cosmetology since she was 9 years old, will be attending the Aveda Arts & Sciences Institute in Minneapolis to earn a certification in cosmetology and take the first step toward the salon she hopes to own one day.

“At the end of the day,” she advised, “believe in yourself.”