Not everyone can attend the commencement ceremonies at Hood River Valley High School and Horizon Christian School this weekend.
    But the community as a whole should congratulate the Class of 2010. Receiving a diploma is a true milestone, an important step for all young people.

We offer our best wishes to high school graduates and to local residents who receive their college diplomas this spring.

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Each year at graduation time, there is a natural tendency to frame the bestowing of diplomas under the umbrella of whatever the job market happens to be like at the time.

As the economy slowly continues to rebound, there are valid concerns, particularly for the college graduates, as to how a new cadre of workers will find suitable employment.

But a college or high school diploma serves not only as a document but as a mark in time. And while it is a major step, graduating from high school or college is just one threshold in a life that is likely to be a string of thresholds.

In his 1983 book, “Winter Tale,” a realistic fantasy about how humans fit into a world that is fast-changing and filled with opportunity, author Mark Helprin made an observation about human potential that our new graduates might consider as they celebrate this threshold and move toward the next ones:

“No one ever said that you would live to see the repercussions of everything that you do, or that you have guarantees, or that you are not obliged to wander in the dark, or that everything will be proved to you and neatly verified like something in science. Nothing is; at least nothing that is worthwhile.”

Helprin also states that “all things are intertwined and justice does indeed spring from the acts and consequences of ages long forgotten … love is not broken by time.”

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Helprin echoes a man of an earlier age, G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), who gave his own encouragement to retain a sense of youth.

“Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery; he has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life.”

As graduates set out upon what is likely to be a serpentine, unpredictable course of life, it is our hope they remain unbroken by time, and poised for history as defined by Helprin: “a nearly infinite number of waves interacting with an infinite number of conjunctions.”

Track champ

There are 800 reasons
to honor Lauren Lloyd

Every graduate likes a strong finish.
    Runner Lauren Lloyd, a member of the Class of 2010, finished as strong as anyone.
    She is a state champion.
    Congratulations to Lloyd for her victory Saturday in the 800 meters in the Class 6A OSAA championship at the University of Oregon.

Lloyd is the first HRVHS track and field champ since Jacquie Mattson won the high jump in 2007.

Lloyd’s accomplishment reflects two things: her hard work and dedication throughout her track career at HRVHS, and the strength of the overall Eagle program. It is encouraging to note that the Eagles have a “rising star” in the pole vault: Olivia Campbell, just a sophomore, placed third. HRVHS took a total of six athletes to state track this year. Making the tournament it is a fine accomplishment in itself.

But the weekend’s spotlight rightly goes to Lloyd, who fended challenges by two other runners, and won going away. In the process, she topped her personal best in the 800 — a virtual two-lap sprint — by three seconds, and set a new school record.

Talk about ending in style. Catch your breath, Lauren, and enjoy Commencement on Friday.