By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
It was a graduation ceremony to remember though not quite in the setting Justin Campbell may have planned.
Campbell, now a 2015 graduate from Bucyrus High School, was laid up in the Bucyrus Community Hospital during his graduation party and ceremony this past weekend.
As his fellow classmates walked for the final time as Bucyrus seniors, Justin was in a hospital room recovering from an appendectomy from the previous weekend and resulting medical issues. Campbell’s mom Shay knew there was no way her youngest child would get to participate in graduation and asked his best friend, Levi Spence, to pick up his diploma after the ceremony.
But nurses at the hospital and family friends weren’t going to let such an important moment be bypassed. As a plan formed, Shay asked Spence to bring along Justin’s mortarboard and gown.
Campbell was sitting in his hospital bed dressed in his black graduation gown with a matching mortarboard on his head and black socks on his feet when the top brass of the Bucyrus City School District walked into his room.
The trio, who had been made aware of Justin’s plight through the efforts of Lindsey Powers, planned an unconventional ceremony for Campbell before he was transferred to Riverside Hospital in Columbus. School board president Brad Murtiff stood off to Justin’s right while Superintendent Kevin Kimmel and Secondary School Principal Mark Burke took positions near the foot of Justin’s bed.
“Just as we have to do in graduation, I have to present it to the board and he has to accept it,” Burke said as he ceremoniously passed the distinctive Bucyrus-red diploma to Murtiff. “President Murtiff, I present Justin Campbell for graduation.”
“On behalf of the board, I proudly accept,” Murtiff said as he leaned in, shook Campbell’s hand, and added a congratulations as he hugged the graduate.
Campbell, wiping tears from his eyes, moved his red, black, and white tassel from right to left amid applause. He then gingerly got up from his hospital bed to shake hands with Murtiff, Burke, and Kimmel.
“It was unbelievable,” Shay said. “I didn’t think they’d do that.”
“It was awesome,” Campbell said in a phone interview. He would spend one more night at Riverside as the hospital staff administered antibiotics for the abscess on his colon. He is expected to be released Wednesday. “It was nice for my mom to see me graduate. It was awesome to have some of my family, my girlfriend, and my best friend there.”
“I couldn’t hold back tears. I tried to,” Justin added.
“We were all bawling our heads off in that hospital room,” stated Justin’s aunt, Tori Robinson. “It was beyond anything they had to do.”
“First of all I really feel bad for the kid,” Kimmel said about Campbell. Kimmel explained that Justin had broken his leg in the final scrimmage prior to the start of the regular football season and missed his entire season. “Football meant the world to him.”
Justin went from that disappointment in the fall to another in the spring.
“He had to have emergency surgery on his leg and he had to miss his own graduation party. They told him initially, ‘At least you’ll get to walk for graduation,’” Kimmel said. “Then because of complications he missed graduation.
“The focus needs to be on Justin and his getting better,” Kimmel said. “I want to wish Justin the best of luck in his recovery from this unfortunate incident.”
Video provided to Crawford County Now by Tori Robinson.