What’s the point of having friends if they can’t be there to support you? While it’s usually a speech or a rehearsed poem that summarizes the meaning of friendship or how a graduating class will always perform better together as one, the 8th grade class at Neil Halfley Elementary School showed that practical application trumps all of the rest. There was one of their own – Nadiyah Dowling – that struggled towards the end of singing “The Star Spangled Banner” under what one would have to assume would be a set of pressures above and beyond anything the young girl has faced.