ELYRIA – Elyria High School’s 2011 graduating class has the same goals as an astronaut, according to graduating senior Rosemary Behmer. They both want to leave, and they both desire to change the world.

It’s also true that both are pioneers, and not just because that’s the high school’s mascot. The class that graduated Saturday evening is the first to do so in the era of the new high school.

Superintendent Paul Rigda, in his speech before nearly 430 graduates, praised the class for its ability to transition out of the old building.

“You left behind the old Elyria High School and watched as it turned to rubble,” he said. “You looked to embrace the present” and look to the future.

The crowd clapped and cheered at every mention of the new high school building, which opened for students in the fall after a massive $70 million renovation and new construction.

Friends and family of the graduates filled the grandstand and other bleachers at the high school football stadium where the ceremony was held. Hundreds more stood along a chain link fence that separates the field from the fans. So many people came that an auxiliary police officer was standing guard at the entranceway to the stadium, which had been closed because he said the stadium was filled to capacity.

Speeches that were given by Rigda, senior speaker Behmer and Principal Daren Conley were mostly inaudible due to the quality of the sound system at the stadium, but that gave the crowd all the more incentive to snap away photos and shout out the names of their loved ones.

Conley, who will be the athletic director beginning next school year, thanked the graduates for their patience, understanding and leadership throughout their high school careers, and instructed them to have  a “wonderful life,” both for themselves and the world.

“That is, after all, what Pioneers do,” he said.

Behmer also had some closing words for her classmates. In keeping with the astronaut theme, she asked everyone not to forget where they came from, and to always remember Elyria High School.

“As you’re floating about out there, look back at Earth,” she said.

Contact Adam Wright at 329-7155 or awright@chroniclet.com.