Resson Saville celebrates receiving his diploma Sunday during Blacksburg High School's graduation.

Photos by JUSTIN COOK The Roanoke Times

Seniors toss their hats in the air Sunday at the end of Blacksburg High School's graduation at Burruss Auditorium at Virginia Tech.

JUSTIN COOK The Roanoke Times

Leah Gay fans herself Sunday to stay cool in the hot and crowded halls before Blacksburg High School's graduation at Burruss Hall at Virginia Tech.

Michael Ellerbrock, a Virginia Tech professor, was Blacksburg High School's commencement speaker.

BLACKSBURG -- The members of Blacksburg High School's Class of 2010 must be clairvoyant because they walked into their commencement ceremony Sunday already heeding their speakers' advice.

They didn't take themselves -- or the trials of their past school year, which included the drama of moving to another school and a new schedule after the roof over their high school gymnasium collapsed -- too seriously.

As nearly all teens do, they sent text messages, discussed graduation party invitations and snapped pictures of themselves during their final hours as high school students.

A few of the then-soon-to-be graduates galloped into Virginia Tech's Burruss Auditorium, where the event has taken place for more than a decade, ready to bid adieu to their lives as Blacksburg Bruins, grab a diploma and begin to write a fresh chapter as young adults.

In all, it was a day of continued tradition. But not before they made a few final wisecracks about what they'd learned and overcome while enrolled at Blacksburg High.

"Our potential has no ceilings," co-class President Sundar Mallikarjunan told his fellow graduates before the crowd snickered.

Mallikarjunan's pun referenced the Feb. 13 roof collapse. No one was injured in the cave-in, but it caused the entire school to be shuttered and sent the high school students to Blacksburg Middle School to take courses in the evening.

For seniors, that caused initial worry about completing enough class credits, being able to take crucial Advanced Placement exams that would provide them credit for college courses and whether they would graduate at all.

At the time, faculty created T-shirts advertising, "We will not crumble" to allay student and community fears.

Still, some students said Sunday that the challenge, with its makeup work and worry, spiced up the school year.

"For me, it made the year more exciting," graduate Hannah Jones said.

Intrigued or otherwise, students made it to Sunday, where challenge and flexibility were the themes of the afternoon.

Looking back, salutatorian Esha Kapania said, the collapse is one memory that shaped class members into who they are today.

Kapania advised her classmates to take on the world before them and to view adversity without such gravity.

They obliged, bouncing two beach balls throughout the class before crossing the stage to pick up their diplomas.

Indeed, said student government President Brooke Priest, "We did not crumble."