Graduation thoughts

The graduates (in red, from left: Jenny, Tasha, Heidi & Brittany) gather with school officials and teachers after the ceremony.

That’s the Class of ’10….

From top:Brittany, with her mom Kathleen; Tasha, with SVC-San Juan Center director Randy Martin; Heidi with proud mom Lee; and Jenny with Charlie & her mom, Cat Bordhi.

Yesterday’s graduation ceremony at Skagit Valley College-San Juan Center was touching, inspiring, and as is often the case at graduation time, a testament to the power of islanders who knuckle down and make good things happen for themselves, their families, and their community.

The Class of 2010 features eight grads: John Johnson, Noah Coyne, Brittany Kane, Jacob Ronhaar, Ying Cen, Natasha Frey, Heidi McEnery Kuheim, and Jennifer Bordi. Ying Cen had already participated in the ceremony of Mount Vernon, and three of the guys were away due to work & commitments, but there were smiles enough to go around.

The ceremony itself had nice touches – Tyler Schubert’s guitar version of Pomp & Circumstance led the procession in to start things. Robin Meyer had Joey Adams singing a song to go along with her poetry reading, while Tyler knocked out Man in Black as part of academic advisor Sandy Harold’s remarks.

Jenny Bordi received the President’s Medal from Skagit Valley College (only three are awarded among SVC’s four campuses and nearly 1300 graduates this spring), and her remarks centered on the importance of family to get you where you’re going – she credited the school with helping her get halfway to her goal of an accounting degree, as well. Her words left us pretty proud we were there.

As it happens, I got to be there when the San Juan Center was dedicated in March 1996, and it was a dream and a hope come true at that point. Now it’s on pretty solid ground – the school’s president tells me that SVC will finish paying off the 20-year note within the next year or so (five years early!), and it’s a good, student-friendly operation for the island with director Randy Martin and his staff doing a super job of helping academic students find their footing as well as providing community classes.

Our little community college is a treasure for the islands. Yesterday was a warm reminder of that.

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