Heartwarming Graduation Photo Recreated 18 Years Later

HUNTSVILLE, TX — A 19-year-old high school student got an unexpected graduation gift after a tweet of her and her dad went viral this month. Tori Roach recently found an old picture of her dad, Dennis, holding her during his graduation from Huntsville High School 18 years ago. Huntsville is roughly 71 miles north of Houston.

"We found the picture when going through my old baby photos to display at my graduation party and my aunt was the one that thought of the idea to recreate it," Roach told Patch.

Roach shared both photos on Twitter May 27 after she graduated from Huntsville High School. The tweet collected more than 67,000 retweets and 175,000 likes and ultimately found its way to Reddit where it also went viral.

"I’m from a small town, so I definitely did not expect my post to get even half as much attention as it did," Roach said.

Roach is currently enrolled at Sam Houston State University for summer classes and will begin her second year in the fall.