The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

Shortly before graduation the idea to line Main Street with custom banners honoring the graduating seniors quickly gained traction. Senior Advisor Matt Wyatt contacted DiJulio Displays in Brier, Wash., to help him create and print the banners. This is the same company who worked with Scott Kirk on Dayton’s senior banners.

Rita Pruczinksi, of DiJulio Displays took on the task of printing the red banners and developed an unexpected relationship with Dayton and Waitsburg’s Classes of 2020.

A small-town based, but large-scale printing and design company, DiJulio Displays prints banners and creates displays for many cities and events including the Pendleton RoundUp.

DiJulio Displays printed many large school’s senior banners across the state this year, however, Rita was more involved with the smaller schools, like the Dayton and Waitsburg High Schools. Due to restrictions from the pandemic, many towns and schools hired the company to print banners of all shapes and sizes for their graduation celebrations.

“After proofing and having to re-proof and all of that, I felt like ‘oh, wow! I know these kids!’ It really felt like I knew them,’ Rita said. “It ended up being really special.” Rita said she is an old friend of the late Waitsburg Mayor Walt Gobel and his wife, Gwen.

She appreciates the closeness of the communities, and how willingly community members stepped up to make the last part of Senior Year memorable for the students in both towns. She said she enjoyed working with senior class advisor Matt Wyatt and Times publisher Lane Gwinn in Waitsburg and Scott Kirk in Dayton.

Being from a smaller town herself, she said she was happy to be a part of these projects.

“I really think these kids are special,” Rita said. “The Class of 2020 will go down in history as a special group, period.”