Staff photos / R. Michael Semple East High School Class of 2026 graduates Daina Rivers, 18, left, and her twin sister Dana Rivers, 18, along with their brother Lynell Stanley, 18, prepare for Tuesday’s commencement at Stambaugh Auditorium. They were among the 143 seniors who made up the final graduating class at the high school. East and Chaney high schools merge into Youngstown High School this fall.

YOUNGSTOWN — A major pop star has had a major influence on Saniyah Harris’ life and ability to reach a major milestone — not to mention being a major motivator for her to be starting something.

“I’m a Michael Jackson fan. When I was younger, he was like my dad,” Harris said.

A touch of the superstar found its way onto the cap she wore, as Harris was among the 143 East High School Class of 2026 members who earned diplomas during the school’s final commencement Tuesday at Stambaugh Auditorium.

Jackson’s top hit songs include “Wanna be Startin’ Somethin,'” “Billie Jean,” “Man in the Mirror” and “Beat It,” but she listed two of his lesser known songs, “Blue Gangsta” and “In the Closet,” as her favorites.

On Tuesday, however, she was anything but in the closet. Harris was highly visible as she walked across the stage to receive her diploma, which likely will be a precursor to her goal of studying cosmetology, then owning her own business.

Harris cited helping to decorate the outside of her school and set up an event called Bear Day as one of her proudest school achievements.

For Monica Smelly, a higher power also served as a significant guiding force that she strongly felt brought her to the Stambaugh Auditorium stage.

“It was not luck, just God. The more I prayed, the more he answered,” Smelly said, adding that her career ambition is to become a licensed practical nurse, though she is uncertain about the choice for her continuing education.

Lynell Stanley and his twin sisters, Daina Rivers and Dana Rivers, may be too young to remember the 1970s hit comedy “All in the Family,” but graduating from East High was precisely that.

“I’m nervous,” Stanley said, though mixed with that natural feeling, under the life-changing circumstances, was determination to attend a trade school, join a labor union and become perhaps a welder or a construction worker.

Becoming an LPN also is on Daina Rivers’ radar, though her college choice is unclear. For now, she is relishing being a mother to her 1-month-old child, and is proud that, despite the challenges of motherhood, she was able to see her schooling through and graduate, she said.

The final East High graduation has left an indelible mark on many of those who took home diplomas, but the historic occasion also has impacted staff and teachers, including Randy Walters, who has taught American government for three years.

Motivating his students — some of whom he had for more than a single school year — for continued success has been a crowning achievement for him, as was seeing the increase in the number of students who have shown proficiency on the state tests. Specifically, 40% of his seniors did so last year in their junior year, Walters noted.

Tuesday’s ceremony marked one of two “lasts” for the seasoned teacher. The second one will be his time in the Mahoning Valley, because Walters is moving in July to Omaha, Nebraska, where his wife received an internship, he said.

“I’m excited for them to move on and go into their adult lives,” Walters added.

The keynote speaker was Artemus D. Scissum, a 1990 East High grad and the school’s assistant principal.

Scissum, who also graduated in 1997 from Alabama A&M University near Huntsville, praised the grads for enduring a more difficult-than-normal school journey, brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. He also reminded them, along with the packed auditorium, about the students’ resilience through that trying time, and for how they have responded to and handled the district’s reconfiguration plan, saying the grads “showed leadership beyond your years.”

In addition, Scissum, who in 1996 founded a small business called Purpose by Design, urged the students to exercise their power, voice and vote.

“Your choices matter; your future matters,” he said.

In his remarks, Scissum also honored the late George Ritz, a 1961 East High grad who spent several decades as a teacher, coach and principal before his death May 24 at age 82, as well as Lock P. Beachum Sr., a retired principal who also served four, four-year terms as a Youngstown school board member.

Additional remarks came from Principal Debra A. Campbell, along with Trentsean Madison and Haylee Connelly, the Class of 2026’s salutatorian and valedictorian, respectively.

Success is measured by the lives one touches and showing care and compassion to others rather than by money or materialism, Madison said, adding that such virtues also supersede popularity.

Echoing those sentiments was Connelly, who plans to enter the business world.

Merely graduating and earning a diploma is not where the students’ stories end, though. It’s also incumbent upon them to work toward bettering the world via doing their parts to tackle hate and division while respecting others’ differences and displaying kindness and forgiveness, Youngstown Board of Education member Joseph Meranto said in his remarks.

In addition, the ceremony was personal for Meranto because his grandchild also was part of the graduating class.