Bright Ideas

Today is May 20, 2017, Graduation Day at Carter County High School in Ekalaka. We didn’t even know all the graduates. One is a relative, others we recognize, but don’t always remember their names. We’ve been out of the “loop” that long.

We started following graduations in 1986; that was 31 years ago, long before these graduates were born. Brice always covered graduations for the newspaper; I had the pleasure of photographing graduates once, when Gary Tuggle loaned me his wheeled office chair to move around during the procession. That was the year Tzeidel Wear graduated. All other years Brice did the photography, marking the day in history.

Brice even delivered the Commencement Address in 1986; I received an invitation to do that in 2001. When I finished speaking, I received a standing ovation. I considered that my 15 minutes of fame. I was much more visible in those days; I had a daughter who would graduate the next year, and a son in seventh grade.

This year the Commencement speakers were Deb and Wayne Yost, who cared for many of the graduates at Yost Daycare. My daughter was cared for by them BEFORE they were a daycare company, just Deb and Wayne Yost. They cared for my daughter’s children before retiring from the business. They are also Emergency Medical Technicians, EMTs, which was useful when they cared for our son.

They heard unedited remarks children make, family secrets sometimes. Yosts were relied on not to make those secrets public knowledge.

I have only attended a few graduations; some people go even when they don’t have family graduating. But, as one co-valedictorian said, “It takes a village.” That makes all of us important in raising all the communities’ children.

We don’t know many students in high school or grade school anymore. One girl in high school now learned as a small child how to press the button on my wheelchair controls to “beep” the horn. She then taught her younger sister. When will they graduate?

Next year we will have two grandsons in elementary school; we know some classmates, and will learn others, as we prepare for another round of family graduations.