Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches #1512: It’s graduation time!

  It’s graduation time - high school graduations, middle school graduations, elementary graduations, kindergarten graduations, college graduations. It’s graduation time.

  I was the commencement speaker at a kindergarten graduation, but I’m not going to write about that graduation. I attended an elementary school graduation, a first grade graduation, a second grade graduation and a community college graduation, but I am not writing about these graduations. I am writing about one graduate - an extraordinary graduate. It’s graduation time.

  This graduation story commenced in 1951, nearly 65 years ago. The Graduate was one of eight children – seven born in the marriage of Elvira Harrel and Arthur Coleman, Sr. and one outside the marriage. Seven of the children, a mother and a father, lived in a three room shotgun house – a kitchen, a middle room and a front room - in Marion Junction, Dallas County, Ala. The Graduate’s family was not just poor; they were “po.”

Michael Josephson: The one-minute graduation speech

  I’ve given my share of commencement addresses, and I confess it’s a head-swelling experience to tell a captive crowd how you think they ought to live their lives while wearing an academic robe and a very silly hat. After all, didn’t they come primarily to hear what you have to say? Actually, they didn’t. In fact, graduation speakers are impediments to the real goal of the day – celebration, not reflection.

  So what we need is a good one-minute graduation speech. Here’s my effort:

Michael Josephson: The Commencement curse

  Millions of teenagers across the land are about to leave the womb of high school for a world full of new freedoms and responsibilities. Although many have been waiting for this event for a long time, eager to get on with their lives as liberated adults, the thought of leaving behind friends and familiar places can be scary.

  The transition isn’t made any easier by well-meaning adults who deliver what I call the Commencement Curse: “These are the best days of your life.” It’s a curse because, if it’s true, we’re telling kids it’s all downhill from here!

Charles C. Haynes: Graduation prayer, fighting over a lost cause

  School officials in Lake City, Arkansas have come up with a novel solution to the fight over prayer at graduation:

  No prayer, no graduation.

  On May 6, the school board voted to cancel sixth-grade graduation at Lake City’s two elementary schools. The action came soon after the district received a complaint letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) objecting to prayers at previous graduations.