Congratulations to the classes of 2018
Graduation season is upon us. First up was Feather River College on Memorial Day weekend. This week is Plumas Charter School. Next week schools from Plumas Unified School District, as well as Long Valley Charter School, will take their turn. In this week’s newspaper you can see the faces of all of those destined to don a cap and gown in your community. (Except in Portola because Long Valley graduates the same week as Portola High, whereas Plumas Charter is graduating one week earlier than Chester, Greenville and Quincy high schools.) No doubt you will recognize some of the faces and the family names of these young people.
Assembling these grad pages takes coordination, time and effort. Our photo editor, Jenny Lee, deserves a lot of credit for processing the hundreds of student photos that are distributed between our four Plumas County newspapers. Thank you Jenny.
Thank you also to our local businesses and individuals who sponsor the grad pages. From the comments that we receive each year, we know that our readers enjoy the coverage.
We also want to acknowledge all of the teachers, school officials and staff who have guided these students to this point in their lives. Of course that extends to the family and friends of the young people.
Finally, congratulations to the graduates! The ceremonies represent the culmination of years of study and work and they should celebrate and be celebrated. This is the moment when they will look back as well as forward. This truly is a new beginning for our high school graduates. Until this moment their lives have been fairly scripted — go to school, play sports, participate in activities — all to reach this one point. Now, they have decisions to make. Go to college? What to study? Where to attend? What career path? Which job to take? Where to live? These are the questions they will begin to answer and they might enjoy some guidance.
Google “inspirational graduation quotes” and you will find list after list of stirring messages. Some are from the famous; some from the not so well known. All provide important points to ponder.
A favorite quote came not from graduation-specific quotes, but rather from how to approach life in general: Each day you have the power to make another person’s life better or worse, choose wisely. Whatever the graduates do moving forward, it will involve other people. When one is always seeking to make other people’s lives better, he or she inevitably will make their own lives better. And one doesn’t need to be a graduate to take those words to heart. It won’t always be easy, but it’s worth the effort. According to Maya Angelou: I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Here are some other words of inspiration to ponder:
Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try. President John F. Kennedy
Follow your passion, it will lead you to your purpose. Oprah Winfrey
Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you will be criticized anyway. Eleanor Roosevelt
The two most important days in the world are the day you were born and day you find out why. Mark Twain
It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default. J.K. Rowling
Every morning you have two choices: continue to sleep with your dreams or wake up and chase them. Unknown
The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it. Pablo Picasso
And this is the part where you find out who you are. Unknown
Don’t ever confuse the two — your life and your work. The second is only part of the first. Anna Quindlen
Congratulations to the Classes of 2018.