Buchanan High senior chooses school nurses as guests for grad ceremony

CLOVIS, Calif. (KFSN) -- One Buchanan high school graduate chose two very special guests for her graduation day.

Only four people were in the audience to watch Reagan walk across the stage on Wednesday for her graduation from Buchanan High in Clovis - and two of them were her high school nurses.

"They really are the reason I got through these last four years of high school so this is definitely going to be super emotional but there's no one I want next to my parents but them," she says.

Reagan was diagnosed with a brain tumor and a rare form of blood disease as a child.

It's something she's had to manage while in school but the past four years she's had some extra help.

"Having these medical stuff, you're different and no one wants to feel different, and they made it so I always felt normal and I had a place I felt safe," she says.

Sarah and Vanessa, her two school nurses, have been there every step of the way.

"She came to me with this serious potentially life-threatening health condition and you would never know it, she lives life the way she wants to," says nurse Sarah Wilson.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, Reagan was only allowed four guests.

She said in addition to her parents, it was an easy choice.

"The nurses' office was a safe spot for me to go if anything was happening," she says.

Adds health assistant Vanessa Peffer:

"I know how hard it is during these times. You only have four people. To be a part of her group just means the world to me."

Reagan will attend Fresno State this fall as a pre-med student.

She plans to one day go to medical school and become a dermatologist.