Members of Boothbay Region High School’s (BRHS) Class of 2024 are no strangers to car parades. Having graduated middle school in a COVID year, the car parade arose as students had to find ways to celebrate the milestone while maintaining social distancing protocols. On Friday, June 7, students once again loaded into decorated vehicles, vintage autos, buses and fire trucks and took to the streets of Boothbay and Boothbay Harbor. This time, the parade followed their high school commencement. And they were free to celebrate unmasked.

Escorted by police and accompanied by every town vehicle that makes lights and sounds, seniors paraded from the high school south, looping through the harbor before turning north toward the town commons. About 20 passenger vehicles circled the rotary; the parade concluded where it began, at the graduates’ now alma mater, and as alumni not students.