Future bright for K. William Harvey students
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner/ValleyJournal K. William Harvey students wear miniature mortar boards with their expected graduation dates, mirroring graduating seniors.
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
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RONAN – Community leaders, school officials, and high school seniors spent April 30 teaching K. William Harvey Elementary School students that smart choices, diligence and high school graduation are building blocks to a prosperous future. Festivities included a Graduation Matters ceremony and girls career fair.
“Graduation is important because it is one of those times in your life when you make a decision about what your future is going to look like,” Salish Kootenai College Vice President Sarah Boham said. “You are making that decision right now. You are making that pledge right now, that you are going to end up being one of the people on this stage getting this diploma. I will be so proud of you and you will be proud of yourself.”
Making good choices and graduating means building a life with a good job, healthy family, and stable home, Boham said to the audience of more than 400 students.
“And you can go to college,” Boham said. “Does it mean you have to go? No. But it means if you want to, you can.”
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Vice Chairwoman Carole Lankford told the students that when she was a student, she was determined to graduate because it was something her mother, a non-graduate stressed was important.
“It bothered my mom so much to not graduate and not be able to read very well or write,” Lankford said.
She encouraged the children to go home and promise their mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles that they would graduate.
“I want you guys to be able to pledge to your families and say you are going to graduate. Right now it is the single most important thing for you to do,” Lankford said. “Because without graduation you can’t go far, and we need you to go far. We need you to lead this country. You can be almost anything you want to be. You can be a woodworker, you can be a firefighter. You can be a cook. You can be a lawyer, a doctor, but the first step in that is graduation.”
The journey to graduation will not be without its obstacles, high school senior Laurel Rigby said. Rigby, clad in the cap and gown she will wear in May, shared a list of hurdles she had to overcome to graduate: her parents separating and moving from Idaho with her mother and disabled sister to Ronan to run a farm.
“Through all of the struggle I’ve maintained the grades and I’m actually going to be graduating,” Rigby said.
She told the students to be as active as possible in school and that graduation would open doors for them in the future.
“Graduating is important,” Rigby said.
Representatives of each class received diplomas from Ronan School Board Chairman Bob Cornwell, who told the youngsters he hoped to hand them the real thing in a few years.
After the ceremony, fourth grade girls got to hear more about the importance of education in choosing a future career from community leaders who volunteered for a career fair.
The girls asked successful women about what judges do, how long it takes to be a doctor, and what kind of adventures veterinarians and wildlife biologists have. They admired artwork made by painters and graphic designers who work in the field.
Dean of Students Carey Swanberg said she was thankful for the volunteers who came out to teach the young ladies about their future options.
“We decided that we were going to graduate in the morning and have them choose a career in the afternoon,” Swanberg said.
