When the 83 Luverne High School seniors cross the graduation stage Sunday afternoon, three sets of twins will be among them.
Nicholas and Lucas Hansen, Jocelyn and Jadyn Hart, and Christina and Elizabeth Wagner have journeyed with their classmates since kindergarten.
Along the way students and staff have learned how to tell them apart, which was no small task considering two are identical twins.
Two of them look nothing like each other.
Two of them have enough similarities that the casual observer would easily mix them up.
The Hansens are identical twins.
“I couldn’t tell them apart,” Christina Wagner admitted. “Fourth grade was so hard.”
However, subtle differences were noticed.
“One of you wore long sleeves,” she said.
Lucas Hansen admits it was him.
“I didn’t get glasses until the fifth grade,” Lucas said.
As seniors the two continue to take advantage of look-alike features, admittedly getting into mischief that included one switch-a-roo when Lucas went to Nicholas’ class so he could leave the school campus early.
“You abuse it sometimes,” admitted Nicholas.
Doctors said the Wagners are paternal twins, but even as seniors the tall blondes are hard to distinguish from one another.
On April Fool’s Day in fifth grade, they made one attempt at switching places.
“It was for like 10 minutes,” Christina Wagner said. “Just in the morning we sat in (each other’s) classrooms.”
Each indicated that teachers easily recognized the switch.
They attempted no switches as they progressed through middle and high school.
The Harts are fraternal twins. As a blonde (Jocelyn) and a brunette (Jadyn), they can’t easily fool classmates or the teachers.
All the twins were placed with different teachers beginning in the second grade, something the Hart sisters appreciated.
“It is definitely easier when you are in different classes,” Jadyn Hart said. “You’re not with the same person the start of the day to when you go to bed.”
Jocelyn readily agreed, “When we get home, we won’t fight.”
After Sunday, the three sets of twins at LHS will be disbanding, as they all set out on different career paths.
But they will always remember the special bond they shared in primary and secondary school.
“I think it will be hard because she has always been there,” Jocelyn Hart said. “In the end it will help build our relationship, let us appreciate each other more.”
The Wagners, however, are staying together for four more years, as they both will attend Southwest State University in Marshall.
They will also be roommates.
“I don’t think I could be any place without Elizabeth,” Christina said. “We shared a room for 16-plus years. We kind of have each other’s habits, the way we live, down.”
Parents of the twins are Jerry and Kathy Hansen, Beaver Creek; Mike and Kristee Hart, and Matt and Jill Wagner, all of Luverne.