MARYSVILLE – Victoria Henry-LeMaster is graduating from Marysville Getchell High School Wednesday.

But while she’s looking to her future, she also wanted to celebrate her past by going to see some of her old teachers at Marshall Elementary School Monday.

For the first time in the Marysville School District, graduating seniors are returning to elementary schools to inspire the younger students to do well and succeed in life. They were treated like superheroes as the two dozen graduating seniors walked through the halls and gym to cheering youngsters. High 5’s, or in many cases low 5’s because of the difference in height, were common.

“All the tiny hands at waist level” was weird but fun, said Matthew Ircink, also of MG.

“You’re the heroes today,” Principal Kelly Sheward told the seniors. “When they’re cheering and screaming they really mean it.”

LeMaster seemed just as excited as the young kids. “I know so many of the teachers here,” she said.

When she attended Quil Ceda Elementary, she was taught by current Marshall teachers Hank Palmer, Elizabeth Bray and Jerri Novy. She wanted to get her picture taken in her cap and gown with all of them.

LeMaster, who plans to attend Washington State University and major in International Business, said it’s not like she hasn’t seen them in years. But the two-time class president at MG who will speak at graduation said it was cool nonetheless.

Like LeMaster, Tyler Brickey of Marysville-Pilchuck High School went to Quil Ceda, but he knows even more teachers at Marshall, including his mom, who teaches kindergarten there.

“My mom kind of influenced me to come” to the event, said Brickey, who plans to attend Central Washington University, eventually becoming a firefighter-paramedic.

Ircink said another thing that made the event special was that it’s the only graduation activity where seniors get to interact with seniors from other schools, including Arts and Tech, that they may have known earlier in life.

“They can see the different paths they can take,” he said of the elementary kids.

Novy said she was excited to see all of the graduates show up, including her daughter.

“Some I didn’t recognize,” she said.

Some of the fifth-graders made signs to honor the graduates. Novy said she told one he will have to come back to Marshall now when he graduates. But he told her he might graduate from Arlington.

“That’s OK,” she said she told him. “You can still come back.”