This time of year we see graduation ceremonies all over the world from the smallest to the largest. I doubt if Viktor Wembanyama, darling of the Spurs and professional basketball, ever really walked across a stage and got a diploma. At 14 he was attending a sports academy, and everyone was talking about how he would set new records. Sure, he finished the French requirements, but I can't imagine that he worried over his senior theme and if he had enough resources for it. LeBron James did graduate from a small Catholic high school where some coaches and interested adults saw what was happening to his life and took control after he had missed something like 80 plus days of the fourth grade but was already showing great athletic ability. His mom didn't have enough money or adequate housing, so others saw to it that he did graduate by providing for him.
Wilson graduations never got old to me as senior sponsor because each class had been with me a long time(too long some might say), and I knew they would accomplish good things which they have. On Sunday night we would have a service(don't have them any more) and listen to a local pastor give the charge for their future. Then graduation night they would assemble in my room and look so wonderful in their caps and gowns. A full house of family and friends would be in the big auditorium, and when I heard the sounds of "Pomp and Circumstance" on the piano, it was my time to herd them the short way down the hall to the doors. Then just as we had practiced, they would wait for me to tap them on the shoulder, say to them"Now," and one at a time they would go down the aisle to their seats. Such smiles--wish we could have framed them and sold them today on E-Bay. It was always a beautiful evening with all the promise of what would be.
After I retired from the classroom, I worked for Tech in their correspondence school, a huge enrollment of students all over the world. I had a ballerina in Milan, a model in New York, students from every experience and location. One student in Tech's group was Jesse Plemons("What kind of American are you?" of the "Civil War" movie). At that time he was in "Friday Night Lights" on tv and was the only real teenager in the cast. He was just in the last year of high school and didn't have the way to work on the show and go to school, so he finished by way of correspondence. He had the option as did all the Tech students of coming to Lubbock and actually walking across a stage to get a diploma, and he and his dad drove out and did just that. How smart of his dad to encourage him to know what it was like.
When Hill Country immigrants came here in 1845, one of the first things they built was a school. Students didn't go as many days as they do now because they were needed on the farms. But when they could get there, they did and learned to read through McGuffey's Readers beginning with the first and going through the Sixth: see Spot, see Jane, Jane has a dog; Jane has a red ball. When I was first attending Sam Houston Elementary in Denton, we lived with my grandmother, and if we did something kind of goofy, she would say, "You look like Ned in the First Reader." We never knew what that meant until maybe 10 or 15 years later when we picked up a McGuffey's Reader that had Ned in it who always seemed to be losing his dog or his red ball or his hat. Then we knew what she meant. The Readers were setting an example for students to keep things together.
Hearing "Pomp and Circumstance" brings back a flood of memories. I hope it doesn't go out of style as many songs have, and I hope graduations continue to be a special time to reflect on accomplishments. It is still a big deal, no matter what some folks would tell you.
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