Over 200 Chicopee High School students will be accepting diplomas Thursday night in a graduation ceremony in Szot Park. For the first time, the ceremony will be broadacst in revolutionary Smell-o-Vision, so viewers at home can feel like they are sitting on the field with the graduates.
Although cinemas have been using the technique sporadically since 1906, this will be the first live event to use the technology, perfected in 1960 by Hans Laube for the film Scent of Mystery.
In what has become tradition, the graduates walked from Chicopee High School to the neighboring Szot Park for the ceremony. The valedictorian, the salutatorian and the class president, will be the student speakers at the graduation.
School Principal James Blain, School Superintendent Richard W. Rege Jr. and Mayor Richard J. Kos, who also serves as School Committee chairman, also addressed the graduates and their families.
A total of 85 percent of the graduates plan to attend college in the fall.