Last Saturday afternoon, the Vashon Island High School (VHS) Class of 2023 rode down Vashon Highway in high style — all the way from the Harbor School to the Vashon Theater — continuing a four-year-long tradition of celebrating island graduates and their accomplishments.

What once started as a functional workaround during the COVID-19 pandemic has now turned into a joyous annual celebration on Vashon for high school graduates.

The parade started in June of 2020, due to COVID safety concerns, and served as a replacement for the Class of 2020’s graduation ceremony. Post-pandemic, the parade has continued alongside the graduation ceremony, with both happening on the same day.

The Class of 2023, comprised of 128 graduates, had been in their freshmen year when lock-down started — and after that, had navigated online and hybrid school before returning to the classroom full time in the fall of 2021.

Still, COVID restrictions continued to be at play until masking was made optional in March of 2022. Only this year marked the Class of 2023’s first full year of relatively “normal” year of high school.

Their graduation parade was marked by joy — and typical island silliness and ingenuity, at times. Even grey skies and chilly weather didn’t dampen the high spirits, as hundreds of islanders lined the sidewalks to cheer as the parade passed by.

Vehicles included a “princess mobile,” multiple boats, classic cars, and numerous pickup trucks, decorated with signs, balloons, flags, and streamers. O Sole Mio, the pizza shop in town, made signs out of pizza boxes for their employees who were graduating.

A school bus led the parade, followed by a smaller white van containing VHS Principal John Erickson and Assistant Principal Sabrina Kovacs.

Graduates, who were almost all wearing their caps and gowns, were often accompanied by their families and friends in the cars while they waved to the adoring crowd.

Voice of Vashon (VOV) deejays again had a booth outside the radio station’s Jean Bosh Studio, where two VOV volunteers read stories about the graduates, submitted by their parents, as they drove by.

This year, Jim Marsh and Mary Marin were on the air and chatted up each grad as they stopped in front of the studio before congratulating them.

The road was not closed this year, and the parade included five “stragglers,” as Marsh called them.

“Sometimes we close traffic [for the parade], sometimes we don’t, so if you see some stragglers give them a round of applause,” said Marsh. “They graduated at one point.”

As another school bus closed the parade, Vashon’s town slowly transformed back to the busy Saturday it was before the parade.

“Go Pirates and go parents,” said Marsh. “Thank you to everyone for sticking with us and raising such great kids. Let’s celebrate and have a safe graduation.”