Lincoln Leadership calls Tymell Millan-Mason’s name first at graduation

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Tymell Antwan-Juelz Millan-Mason’s name was called first Friday at Lincoln Leadership Academy Charter School’s Class of 2026 commencement.

His chair sat empty.

The moment came during a memorial recognition before the school moved into the rest of its graduation program.

Millan-Mason, an 18-year-old Bethlehem senior known to classmates and family as “Ty” or “Mell,” did not live to see the graduation he had been working toward. Family members accepted his diploma on his behalf as classmates, relatives and friends filled the ceremony dressed in white, some wearing memorial shirts bearing his face.

The recognition came less than a month after Millan-Mason died from gunshot injuries sustained in a May shooting outside an Allentown McDonald’s. Authorities have said the case remains under investigation, with no arrests announced.

School officials opened the commencement ceremony by acknowledging the grief that hung over the milestone.

“All of our graduates are here, and we are happy for those who are here,” Michael Evans, a Lincoln Leadership administrator, told the crowd. “And it is true that there is one graduate who is not with us today.”

Evans said the school wanted to hold two truths at once: that Millan-Mason’s classmates had reached a day worth celebrating, and that one of their own was missing from it.

“We will celebrate him even while we miss him,” Evans said.

A chair where Millan-Mason would have sat was left in his place, decorated with messages, gifts and graduation items. It served as a visible memorial throughout the ceremony, one of several ways the school folded his memory into the day rather than treating it as separate from the class celebration.

Jessica Bradlau, a Lincoln Leadership staff member who said she had gotten to know Millan-Mason over the past two years, described him as kind, funny and joyful.

Students, she said, had shared memories of him in the weeks since his death.

“He smiled at every situation,” one student remembered, according to Bradlau. Another said Millan-Mason “was the light of life and lit up every room.”

Bradlau said Millan-Mason was known not only for his friendships but also for how he treated students who might have felt left out.

“He was nice to me when other people were not,” one student told her.

After the reflection, school officials presented Millan-Mason’s diploma to his family.

“Tymell Millan-Mason, Class of 2026,” an administrator announced, drawing applause from the crowd.

The ceremony marked a historic year for Lincoln Leadership, a public charter school in Allentown. The Class of 2026 was described as the school’s first cohort to complete its full K-12 education at Lincoln, beginning as young children and graduating together Friday.

That milestone was referenced repeatedly, including by Sandra E. Figueroa Torres, the school’s founder and retired leader, who returned to speak to the graduating class.

Figueroa Torres said the class had made history, but she also framed the day as bittersweet.

“I know that today is a bittersweet day for our Lincoln family,” she said. “As we grieve the loss of our beautiful Tymell, we also celebrate his life and rejoice in his major accomplishments and honors today.”

Her remarks, like others throughout the ceremony, appeared to be shaped by Millan-Mason’s death. She urged graduates to live with purpose, seek justice and stand up for those harmed by violence and injustice.

“We have been so painfully reminded that none of us is promised tomorrow,” Figueroa Torres said.

Later in the ceremony, the school played a slideshow of memories showing students from their earliest years at Lincoln through graduation. Images of Millan-Mason appeared among the class memories. Each time his photo came across the screen, classmates and audience members cheered and applauded.

The moment turned the memorial into something celebratory, with the crowd responding not with silence, but with recognition.

Outside after the ceremony, students gathered around a vehicle covered with photos, notes and decorations in Millan-Mason’s memory. They took pictures, lingered together and continued marking the graduation day he did not live to attend.

Millan-Mason was shot May 15 near the McDonald’s at 1321 Union Blvd. in Allentown. Another person was also wounded, according to previous reports. Millan-Mason later died at a Lehigh Valley hospital, and the Lehigh County coroner ruled his death a homicide.

The Allentown Police Department and Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office have been investigating.

On Friday, though, the focus at Lincoln Leadership remained on the diploma Millan-Mason had earned, the classmates who grew up alongside him and the seat kept for him among them.

The school did not let his absence go unspoken.

It called his name first.