VIDALIA — For some, it was the end of the best years of their lives thus far.

But for all of Vidalia High School’s graduates, as they marched across the stage on the football field with the sunset behind them Friday night, they marched proud toward a new sunrise in their lives.

It was a theme Salutatorian Marshall Garret Henson embraced as he addressed his classmates and those who attended to celebrate their achievements with them.

“Graduation is not an ending,” he said. “It is a beginning. Tonight is the night when life begins.”

VHS’s 98 graduates in the class of 2014 included 10 graduating with special honors and 25 graduating with honors.

Among those graduates were students who had been in school together since kindergarten, and those who had only come to know each other in recent years.

“Muhammad Ali said, ‘Friendship is not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything,’” Henson said to his classmates. “It has been a pleasure to know you all, and I can truly say I have learned the meaning of friendship from all of you.”

But graduation wasn’t just a celebration for students, and graduate Nathan Rogers noted that the parents who were now wiping tears from their eyes once wiped the noses of the graduates.

Completing school was possible in part because of the support of those parents, Rogers said.

For Valedictorian Jacob Patrick Wilkinson, the night was an opportunity to transcend the routine graduation speech.

Most speeches at graduations contain themes about how one phase of life is ending and another one is beginning.

That’s obvious, Wilkinson said.

“We all know our lives are about to change,” he said.

Instead, Wilkinson encouraged his classmates to go forward and live intentionally.

“I never saw a tombstone that said, ‘I wished I had worked more,’” he said. “They usually say, ‘loving father and husband’ or ‘loving wife and mother.’”

That kind of legacy can be left by living to serve, Wilkinson said.

“Be a good parent to have good kids, and be a good spouse to have a good spouse,” he said. “And most important, put our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ first.”

Those who graduated with special honor included:

Wilkinson; Henson; Nathan Grant Rogers; Cheyenne Monique Cavazos; Alissa Rowland; Maegan Kammerdeiner; Trey’on Carter; Tara Alexandria Ellis; Haleigh Raye Johnson and Jordan Mazique

Those who graduated with honor included:

Lindsey Brooke Thompson; Jasmine Floyd; Savannah Dawn McCarver; Khalia’ LaShae Harris; Whestley Elizabeth Shirley; Charles William Anderson III; Lauren Elizabeth Cater; Sydney Layne Ozburn; Hailey Wilson; Carli Ann Ricks; Rachel Michelle Buford; Chantry Boyd Simpson; Logan Dallalio; Lauren Elizabeth Dungan; Rayna Nicole Hathcox; Kevin Kyle Coley Jr.; Nicholas Lea Parker;  Micah Mitchell Morrison; Mitchell Tighe Carter; Annalee Kristin Forman; Frankeysha Duson; Shelby Claire Riley; Jerrica Johnson; Jacqueline Erin Behrens and Patricia Paige Waltman.