Daughter Recreates Sweet Photo with Her Dad, 18 Years After He Graduated from the Same School
Dennis Roach was just a teenager when he became a parent, proudly holding his baby daughter in his arms after graduating from Huntsville High School in Texas in the year 2000.
18 years later, Roach got to hold his daughter again — only this time, it was in celebration of her own high school graduation.
When Tori Roach was a freshly minted high school graduate one year ago, she posted a sweet side-by-side photo of her and her father in 2000 and again in 2018.
In the photo from 2018, Tori, 18 at the time, smiled as she was scooped up into her dad’s arms for the adorable recreation photo.
The photo went viral in 2018 and again in 2019 as photos from graduation ceremonies began to crop up around the internet.
18 years later ?? pic.twitter.com/1zd5HVjz2m
— Tori? (@__toritilla) May 27, 2018
Tori is now 19 and a student at Sam Houston State University in Texas. She said that her post on Twitter has received a lot of attention in recent weeks, just like it did one year ago.
“I woke up and I had a ton of notifications … People had started sharing and liking and commenting all over again,” Roach told People.
“My dad was really proud. We’re from a small town, so nothing like this really ever happens. And he was like, ‘That’s so cool!’”
Meet @__toritilla, the teen who went viral for recreating her dad’s adorable graduation moment when she graduated from high school herself. https://t.co/YQ6mU1e9sz pic.twitter.com/eg0mxc8ETe
— Inside Edition (@InsideEdition) May 30, 2019
Tori said that it was her aunt’s idea to recreate the graduation photo, and she wants to add a third photo to the collection once she graduates from college in 2022.
“It’s in the same town that I was born and raised in,” Tori said.
“When I graduate from Sam, it’ll be in the same stadium that I graduated in from high school and the same stadium that he graduated in from high school.”
She added that the sweet photo has strengthened their relationship.
“It brought me and my dad closer in a way because we could share that moment, and I feel that not many other people get to experience that,” she said.
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