LaFAYETTE — LaFayette High School was once on the failing schools list. On Monday night, 52 students were honored in the school’s 2018 graduating class and they collectively garnered over $7.8 million in college scholarships.

Cars crowded and spilled onto the front lawns of nearby churches and homes as a standing room only gym applauded for each graduate as if the Bulldogs basketball team was playing in the biggest basketball game in the history of high school athletics.

“We’re a family,” LaFayette High School athletic director James Lucas said. “We back each other, we feel for one another and we love each other. That’s why I’m so glad that God led me here.”

Lucas and other coaches around the school spent 12 and a half hours in preparation for the ceremony on Sunday. The grass was cut around the football stadium and basketball court just in case the day’s showers ceased, he said.

The graduating class stood up and sung a school anthem before individually getting their moment of glory walking across the stage, many graduates having their scholarship total announced.

Students who accumulated six-figures worth of money to assist with college became a norm as more names were read on the list.

After the final name was called the students stood up and turned their tassels as the chorus of Post Malone’s “Congratulations” played on a loop.

The graduates then exited the gym after hearing some words of wisdom from the school’s elders.

Family members and friends made their way onto the Bulldog basketball court to take photos with the graduates for the next 45 minutes before the gym lights slowly came off and the crowd emptied.