EDITORIAL: To the class of 2011

Posted 5/19/11

That world — the future — may be a bit scary. You may find it hard to land a good job in the current economy, or you may find college more challenging than you thought it would be. You may encounter troubles that you never anticipated, and you …

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EDITORIAL: To the class of 2011

Posted

Sunday, 94 of you will walk out of Powell High School to take on a new world. Later next week, 15 more of you will do the same when you graduate from the Shoshone Learning Center.

In our culture, graduation from high school is a major landmark on the way to adulthood, and it’s an exciting time for you graduates as you set off for new adventures and challenges. And though you probably won’t admit it, there will probably be bittersweet moments this weekend as you say goodbye to one world and prepare to enter another.

That world — the future — may be a bit scary. You may find it hard to land a good job in the current economy, or you may find college more challenging than you thought it would be. You may encounter troubles that you never anticipated, and you will probably have some failures. You will be entering an undiscovered country, and no one really knows for certain what you will find there. It will be challenging, but it will also be exciting.

There are those who will tell you that you have been poorly educated and aren’t ready to meet those challenges. Don’t believe them. You have had the privilege of attending an outstanding school, and you have had the opportunity to take advantage of knowledge and technology that wasn’t available when your parents were your age, or even as recently as 1998, the year you started kindergarten. You know a lot, and you have picked up many skills in the past few years.

If you have taken advantage of what your school offered you, you have learned to work hard, work with others, solve problems and think for yourselves. Most importantly, you have learned how to learn, because you will need that skill to acquire the additional knowledge and skills you will need in the future as you make your way in the world.

You might not appreciate that right now, and you probably aren’t even aware of all that you have learned since you began your journey through school 13 years ago. Down the road, though, those lessons will come back to you when you need them, and they will help you with the new lessons that will face you from time to time as you continue your education, make a living and raise families.

Some of those future lessons will be difficult, but they will be necessary, because you can never stop learning.

For those of us here at the Tribune who have covered your activities over the years, reporting on you and your successes has been a pleasure, and we thank you for giving us the opportunity to report on so many positive achievements. We congratulate you again for those achievements, and we wish you the best for the future.

Whatever you decide to do with that future, work hard, but remember to enjoy life as well. And don’t ever stop learning.

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