Not the end, but the beginning

MEDORA — Sierra Jackson doesn’t see graduation as the end.

“Today marks the beginning, the beginning of our lives as graduates,” she said during Medora High School’s commencement Friday night. “… we aren’t saying goodbye. We are saying hello to the future.”

As valedictorian, Jackson spoke of the Class of 2010’s past and future and gave advice to her 14 graduating classmates.

“The past 13 years have been the building blocks for our future,” she said. “We have faced trials, fears and new adventures together. Looking back, I see that our school career has been a training session. Now we have to apply what we’ve learned.”

For Principal Brad McCammon, it was hard to hold back the tears.

“I had a special connection with this group of young people,” he told parents, grandparents and other family members who attended the ceremony.

He recalled watching many of the students as they first entered kindergarten and how quickly the years passed until they began their freshman year.

“These graduates seem like my own kids,” he said.

And in fact, one of them, Kelsey McCammon, is.

Although some people say larger schools are better and provide more opportunities to students, Brad McCammon disagrees.

“More opportunities to become a number and get lost in the crowd, maybe,” he said. “But I’m proud that my daughter is graduating from a small school where the atmosphere has provided her and the rest of this class many great opportunities.”

He also shared his pride in the fact that the Class of 2010 has the largest percentage of students going to college of any class before them.

McCammon went on to thank the parents, families and community for all of their support.

“You have made my job easier and have made us a better school system,” he said.

Senior Class President Courtney Farmer relied on the words of Dr. Seuss to comfort her classmates.

“Some of us will be teary-eyed tonight and some may cry, but in the words of Dr. Seuss, ‘Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened,’” she said. “As we receive our diplomas tonight, we will be ending one chapter of our lives and starting a new one.”

Superintendent John Reed told students to go into the world confident of themselves but never afraid to ask for guidance.

“Remember, your parents helped you get where you are today. Ask them for direction,” he said. “And don’t forget that God loves you. Ask Him for direction.”

Unlike the other students who have spent the past 13 years together, salutatorian Carrie Lawson came to Medora High School last year.

She told her classmates that although they will get gifts and congratulations for graduation and it may seem that the day is all about them, it is not.

Recalling a story she had read about a man named Charles Plumb, a U.S. Navy jet pilot during the Vietnam War, Lawson explained how Plumb had to eject from his plane and parachute to the ground. Later he was able to thank the man that packed his parachute, Lawson said.

“Too often we fail to say thank you to the people who have packed our parachutes,” she said.

She thanked teachers for “packing our intellectual parachutes,” her church family for “packing my spiritual parachute,” and her parents, for “packing my emotional parachute.”

Her advice to her classmates came from their class motto: “Take a chance because you never know how absolutely perfect something could turn out to be.”

Medora Class of 2010

Alison Benham, Tiffany Wigley, Michael Bailey, Ethan Wheeler, Amy Burrell, Destiny Riley, Alfred Bowers Jr., Nickolas Smith, Courtney Farmer, Kelsey McCammon, Joseph Hansen, Wesley Ray, Sierra Jackson, Carrie Lawson and James Lane