Thoughts on graduation
To the editor:
Finally! Graduation. The weather has finally graduated to warm and hot! Less than a month ago we dealt with yet another day of the white stuff. Since then the greenery has exploded and now the farms are struggling to keep up with the weeds. Aroostook County weeds are tough. Much like our students. And we never know where they will go. If there ever is a green revolution our weeds will be in the forefront.
Graduation time is a shared experience for all. These past few weeks there have been marked by the transition of one class to the next. The class of 2015 has moved into the history books and we now begin the trek to the class of 2016. All of the 2015 students have now moved into new and unknown territory. This is what they have spent the past few years learning to accept the change that will shake up their world. Where do they go? For all its sacredness the graduation process seems to come to an end after the ceremony.
Students graduate. With pride parents, friends, and family laud the challenges well met by the blood, sweat, and tears as students learn about the tools that are needed to survive in the new unknown. The future can not be known. Only the need for tools to understand that bright newness remains a constant. Yet somehow students and people graduate. The School Administrative District 1 graduated its leader for the past 30-plus years this past Wednesday. Leaving behind a legacy of stability and innovation it now prepares to enter a future that can only be guessed.
One of many graduates of Presque Isle High took the ultimate test, passing from today into history. Dave Eager graduated with honor and distinction earned while he studied how to be the best he could be. In school you always wanted him on your team. Tough, tenacious and protective of his classmates he carried the knowledge of Aroostook County far beyond our borders to the state of Ohio. Now he has graduated and his story becomes part of the history of Presque Isle High School.
There is little to mark the achievements of our graduates. We honor them with a ceremony and then forget them to concentrate on the next class. Yet, our graduates persevere. They roam this wide world gracing the stages of New York, the streets of Rome, Paris, and Shanghai. Their tenacity mirrors the hardiness of the rocks and weeds of the county fields from whence they came. It is time for a parade. Where have the graduates gone? More importantly, who have those graduates inspired? A simple parade done with the sincerity and humor of a proud home town should shine brightly into the unknown that each group faces. Be it resolved that as we graduate our story is remembered and celebrated.
Orpheus Allison
Castle Hill
