HERSHEY, Pa. — Kyle Vosburg didn’t expect he would spend the last three weeks of high school at Penn State Children’s Hospital. But the 18-year-old Mercersburg resident was diagnosed with leukemia in February and came down with a nasty cold after his third round of chemotherapy. Friends and family had hoped Kyle would be well enough to go home in time for this past weekend’s graduation ceremonies on the football field at James Buchanan High School.
Instead, staff at Penn State Health helped bring graduation to him.
At noon Friday (June 2), the familiar bars of “Pomp and Circumstance” played from a cell phone as a procession walked through the door of Kyle's hospital room. Kyle sat in his green cap and gown, smiled, and accepted his diploma from his high school social worker.
In a trauma wing nearby, 18-year-old Emily Baker of Newville was also making plans to participate in her high school ceremonies from afar. Baker found herself at Penn State Hershey after an automobile crash on Tuesday.
Friday afternoon, she lay in her bed recovering from surgery and visiting with two friends who had brought her cap and gown to the hospital. One corner of the room was filled with flowers, cards and balloons, while the outside was decorated with crepe paper streamers in Big Spring High School’s orange and gold colors and congratulatory window paint done by nurse Margaret Murray, a Big Spring alum.
Emily, salutatorian of her class, participated in Friday night’s graduation via an iPad hooked up to a robotic device that her school has used for homebound instruction in the past. “A fellow student suggested to the principal that they do that,” Emily’s father Bob Baker explained.
Read more about how Kyle and Emily celebrated graduation from their respective high schools in this Penn State Medicine article.