Student Commencement Speaker Redeems Her Younger Self

AVON PARK, Fla. – Dec. 9, 2025 – “I was so afraid to mess up, to get a bad grade, to fall behind, that I just gave up instead of letting myself fail, stand up, brush myself off, and keep going,” said Lacie Hershberger, student speaker for South Florida State College’s Fall Commencement, commenting on her first foray into college. “I wish that I had just powered through.”

The 41-year-old Arcadia resident can now look back on her younger self and be gratified that, with the support of friends and loved ones, she will earn her Associate in Arts during the SFSC’s Commencement ceremony on Thursday, Dec. 11 at 4 p.m. at the Alan Jay Wildstein Center for the Performing Arts on the SFSC Highlands Campus in Avon Park. Hershberger was selected to be the graduation keynote speaker.

Hershberger is a proud member of a family descended from early Florida pioneers, John and Alice Blackshear Platt. Although Hershberger was born in Fort Hood, Texas, her family returned to Florida when she was 2 years old. Her mother’s family has lived in Arcadia, Fla. for several generations.

From an early age, she dreamed of becoming a broadcast journalist. “I was comfortable on stage in front of people,” she said. “I loved to sing and perform, and I participated in pageants from the time I was a toddler through high school. As I grew older, I became fascinated with television broadcaster Katie Couric, who was the ‘It Girl’ at that time. I idolized her and I enjoyed writing.”

Hershberger followed her heart by working on the DeSoto High School newspaper. When she graduated from school, she planned to attend Florida Gulf Coast University and earn a bachelor’s degree in Broadcast Journalism. But things didn’t work out as she planned.

“I started at Florida Gulf Coast University in August 2002 and left just before Spring Break 2003,” Hershberger said. “I majored in Broadcast Journalism, but after I got to the university, it was overwhelming.”

A combination of loneliness, home sickness, and the complexity of navigating the college admission, financial aid, and registration processes plagued her.

“First of all, I didn’t know anyone at the university,” she said. “I grew up in a small town, so you pretty much know everyone and they know you. It’s a blessing and a curse. Also, the university was constructing dorms at the time, so I had to live alone at a hotel in Naples, Fla.

“My mother didn’t go to college, so knowing what to do and when was new for me and for her,” she said. “The high school counselors weren’t helpful, I didn’t know the counselors at the university, and financial aid was a difficult process to get through. At the time, financial aid required pages and pages of information and it wasn’t online.”

When Hershberger was a senior in high school, she was crowned Miss DeSoto County. In September 2002, the Turner Agri-Civic Center in Arcadia held a grand opening and, in her official duties as Miss DeSoto County, Hershberger returned to town to participate in the event. There, she met a young man with whom she quickly became smitten.  

“While I was in college, I was building a new relationship and trying to maintain my classes,” she said. “I was doing fantastic in my Oral Communications class, which I loved. But I had a history class in which I struggled and got a ‘D.’ I don’t do ‘Ds.’ And I was taking a microcomputers class that I found boring. I’d just had enough.”

So, she went home to Arcadia. Hershberger and the young man married in 2005. A few months later, Hershberger became pregnant at age 21.

“Having a child around age 21 seems incredibly young now that I have a daughter that’s almost 20,” she said. “My daughter, Kiersten, has a serious boyfriend, but they’re doing things the way I wish I had done it.” Kiersten is also a student at SFSC.

Over the years, Hershberger worked as an office manager for a citrus company, taught at a privately owned preschool, advocated for children through the Florida Guardian Ad Litem program, and ran the office for the University of Florida Extension Office’s 4H program. She had two more children – Alaina, who is 13 years old, and Gracelynne, who is almost 7 years old.

In her second marriage, Hershberger endured an unhealthy relationship. She and the children left their home and Hershberger vowed never to marry again. “I decided that this cycle had to end with me,” she said. “I never want my children to live in that cycle. In all the years involved with children and the Guardian Ad Litem program and the years of training, I learned that it’s highly likely that if you are a mother in an unhealthy relationship, your children would end up in one as well. I decided that day that would not happen to my children. So, I moved out of that home and got an apartment for us. I was adamant that my children were going to have everything they needed and I would provide it for them.”

In 2016, Hershberger took a position with the local public school district, where she started as a substitute teacher, then became a paraprofessional, working one-on-one with children with disabilities. Then the pandemic hit, and eventually the elementary school was able to create a position for her as lead Exceptional Student Education (ESE) Pre-K teacher. She had a classroom of students who had disabilities, most of whom had limited speaking ability.

“I loved it,” Hershberger said. “Years ago, these children would have been pushed to the side or just pushed through. I liked being able to advocate for them and make sure that they were learning, but also that they were learning the life skills they needed at that young age. ‘This is how we sit here, and this is how we put our shoes on,’ and just the little things that they might have missed had they been in any other classroom. And they were able to socialize with other children and adults. We had, at most, 14 students in class.”

However, changes occurred within the school’s administration and Hershberger felt that the children in her class were falling by the wayside. She left the job and began cleaning houses and working as an office manager for her church. Not only did she meet her current husband during this time and change her mind about marriage, but the last house Hershberger ever cleaned was owned by her current employer at Faith Community Christian Academy in Arcadia.

While housecleaning one day, Hershberger received a phone call from Faith Community Christian Academy, telling her that the school had a high school position open. “I said, ‘I don’t teach high school. I teach little people and that’s all I know.’ But when I sat down for the interview, every ounce of me knew, ‘This is where I need to be.’

“I’m now in my fourth year at the school and my daughter, Alaina, is a student at the school” she said. “The first year was teaching ninth grade. This year, I’m teaching what we call vocational students. When they graduate, the students will likely attend a vocational-technical college or go directly to work.”

“I get to work with students who sometimes the world forgets, because they aren’t going to college,” she said. “For me, I relate to that. Years ago, you had two options in a small town like Arcadia — you either get married and have children or you go to college. And they were almost mutually exclusive.  But I like being able to encourage the students to do whatever it is they want to do for their future.”

Hershberger’s decision to return to college in later years was prompted in part by her employer’s desire to have the school accredited. Teachers would be required to have college degrees and teaching certificates. Hershberger’s friend Vickie Penley worked at SFSC in Arcadia and was taking classes through the College. Penley encouraged her to return as did Hershberger’s husband, Anthony. He said, “I’ve been trying to tell you that you can do anything. So, if you want to go back to college, we’ll make it work. We’ll figure it out.”

Hershberger enrolled at SFSC’s DeSoto Campus because she could take classes close to home. “The DeSoto Campus has so many more options than ever before,” she said. “And no one in town has anything bad to say about SFSC.

“I want to have the degree, because it signifies that I finally finished something I started,” Hershberger said. “That’s the main thing that’s driven me, because I found myself moving from here to there with no real goal or purpose. But then I started a job I love at Faith Community Christian Academy and I married a wonderful, supportive man. Now things are settled and I feel safe.”

But Hershberger wants to keep things rolling and transfers to Southeastern University in January. She plans to continue her education by pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Ministerial Leadership with a concentration in Missional Leadership, followed by a Master of Arts in Ministerial Leadership.  With a strong background in education and a heart for service, she would like to eventually establish a faith-based nonprofit organization dedicated to outreach and support for at-risk youth.

She will tell you that if she could speak to her younger self, she would say, “I thought college was hard then. Then life happened and it was way more difficult than passing a history class. Life can be tough and it gets harder before it all evens out. But it does eventually. I just traveled a different road.”