WEST FELICIANA - Through their determination and with the kindness of their neighbors, a West Feliciana family was able to make it to their son's graduation on time, despite a tree coming down and blocking the roadway.

Around 5:45 p.m. on Friday, May 9, the Ferguson family pulled out of their driveway to head to West Feliciana High School to see their son, Layson, graduate from high school.

It had been raining for most of the day and was drizzling around that time. While driving along Woods Road in Saint Francisville, Layson noticed something and stopped.

"I'm coming around this corner here, and I come up on the tree down and I'm just like, 'Oh, well that's great'," Layson said.

His parents, Jim and Stephanie, were following him in their car and saw it too. A tree uprooted from the ground had knocked over a few others, blocking the road.

"This is not unusual for us, but this is a large tree. One that we could move in about an hour or so, but we'd miss graduation, so we had that panic moment. Oh my goodness, we are going to miss graduation," Jim Ferguson said.

With graduation starting at the high school at 7 p.m., the Fergusons started calling friends, seeing if they could come and get them. Jim and Stephanie even considered staying there. 

Then, they called their neighbor Joey.

"Being the small community, the close-knit neighbors that we are, we sent a 911 text to my neighbor Joey Nations up the road, who responded in two or three minutes. He had a vehicle down here for us."

While in their nice clothing and Layson in his cap and gown, they climbed over the trees and got in the vehicle.

"I just gave him my car. I said, 'Here, take our car. Go enjoy your evening. I'll take care of this.' I flipped him my keys, he flipped me his, and off they went." Nations said.

Nations called the West Feliciana Parish crews, who came and cleaned up the road. Joey then moved the Ferguson's cars to his property so they could come to pick them up after the graduation ceremony ended.

The Fergusons made it to the ceremony in time, getting to see Layson graduate and receive his diploma, which is Jim and Stephanie's second son to graduate. He will be attending Louisiana Tech for college.

"I'll be studying construction engineering technologies in the engineering school there, trying to get my surveying license, do some field surveying maybe," Layson said.