Celebrating Jacob
Our summer started with a bang. With a cross-country trek. Our first trip started with an eight-hour drive to Las Vegas to attend a high school graduation. We spent the first weekend of June there, with family that hailed from Oregon, Arizona and California. There was almost two dozen of us there for the event. The family held a large barbeque lunch since the graduation was set to begin at six pm, to be held downtown at the Thomas and Mack Center at UNLV.
It was an impressive ceremony considering the nearly eight-hundred students that graduated from Foothill High School. There were numerous Valedictorians and a single Salutatorian in the class, leading a ceremony that was almost three hours long. Jacob graduated with honors, and wore a special cap and gown to signify this. We are so proud of him for his achievements and excited with his parents for all the support that they’ve given him to help him get to where he is.
It was slightly disappointing to see how disorganized the event began, with security standing guard at a single open door in a six door entrance. There were two people in yellow shirts standing there, they were not searching people, they were not using metal detector wands, or any other reason that made sense to keep the rest of the doors closed. The second disappointment came later when we learned that the school had not properly ordered enough of the programs to cover their event by a long shot. In every graduation that I’ve attended over the last twenty years since my own, I have never experienced this situation. It was sad because parents, and grandparents traditionally save these as mementos because the student’s names are printed inside, including a list of honors that they may have been awarded. To see the disappointment on the face of these families who would not be able have one of these, not even enough had been printed for one per family, let alone the large families with multiple generations that attended. Considering they were fully aware in advance of the number of guests that would be attending the event because tickets had to be obtained for each person, it was an even bigger disappointment. I truly hope that the school will remedy this for their future events.
It was so good to see everyone that we haven’t seen since the last high school graduation in Oregon, two years ago. There’s a good possibility that we won’t get the chance to see everyone all together again until the next graduation scheduled in two years in Oregon again, so it made this reunion that more special. We were also blessed to be a part of Donna and Dan’s 50th Wedding Anniversary. You certainly don’t get to be a part of many of those these days.
Congratulations Jacob and Skylar. We look forward to seeing you go out into the world and making your mark.
From there we got up early said our goodbyes, and headed to visit even more family and the newest member of the clan in Oklahoma.