News : The future monument to the Class of 2017

To the Class of 2017 (and anyone else who chooses to pay attention): I have been on a journey recently, a journey that may have some similarities to yours. But first: It would not be a true graduation message without at least one of the timeless cliches that have echoed across gymnasiums and high school auditoriums. So, graduates, always, always remember: Life does not consist of the number of breaths you take, but of the moments that take your breath away. Like when the water in your shower suddenly turns ice cold. Almost every quote you hear at a graduation includes a, "yeah, but"� - an obvious exception to the motivational idea the speaker is trying to share. While I'd love to spend more time mocking the weaknesses of graduation speech cliches, it occurs to me that the advice I plan to share today is in its own way, a cliché. I have been spending my free time in the past few weeks riding along a bike trail at the edge of a big city. Along that trail are a variety of markers - memorials to people who had made the trail possible. Along the trail, I have read the names of families who donated land for that trail, along with the names of famous people who have lived there, as well as the local leaders who led the effort to build this trail for hikers, joggers, bicyclists and dog-walkers. But at the very end of that trail, where the concrete ends, is another monument, a concrete pillar just like the other ones, surrounded by a loop of pavement and some benches. But at the top of this concrete is: Nothing. The makers of this trail created a monument, not knowing who it will ultimately honor. I believe, members of the Class of 2017, that this monument is for each one of you. Every one of you will be remembered by someone, somewhere. And even though they may not actually put your name on a trail marker. They will remember your work, your words, your smile, your heart, your personality, your quirks, your friendship and your faith. For some of you, my advice makes sense already. You have publicly succeeded at school, in academics or sports or fine arts. Your accomplishments have earned you headlines and scholarships. For others, however, high school has been hard, for a variety of reasons, from health challenges to family issues, to the daily challenges of classwork. That was my experience in high school. I did well on tests, but struggled so much in every other area that if you had told me that someday people would pay attention to my words, I would have said: Nope. And I will tell you a secret: Some of the people on the stage at your graduation also struggled a lot in high school. One administrator, as a student, got in a fight with one of my cousins. Another one told me she spent much time in high school in the principal's office. The fact that high school was hard for you is not a guarantee - not at all - that life will be as tough. For some of us, high school will be among the toughest time of our lives. But let's go back, for a moment, to the cliches: Invariably, someone will quote Robert Frost: "Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the road less traveled."� Every time I hear someone say this, I think: "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I realized that someone had done a very, very poor job of civil and environmental engineering: Who on earth builds a road in the woods?"� The actual quote from Frost is from a poem entitled, "The Road Not Taken."� It ends with these lines: I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I"� I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. As I steered my bicycle from the concrete to the dirt paths that meander through the woods, I thought about Frost's words: The road less traveled. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 70 percent of high school graduates took the road to college in 2016. I can assure you that the administrators and school board members sitting on the stage at your commencement sincerely hope you do NOT take the road less traveled, when it comes to furthering your education. College is not for everyone, of course - military service, business opportunities and some very good jobs do await some high school grads. But generally speaking, if you want to succeed, high school is just the beginning. Take the road most traveled. Go to college or technical school or some place to learn what you need to get a good job. Yet, as I rode along, I thought of my journey, and that of some of my friends. I did not merely, in my career, take a road less traveled; I took a road that to my knowledge, nobody had ever traveled on at all. In my current job, as editor of a small-town, online-only newspaper, I took a career path that nobody I know had previously chosen. When we started Vinton Today, there was no pattern to follow, nobody to ask how to do it because we did not know anyone who had tried before. Members of the Class of 2017, many of you will find yourselves in similar positions. You will end up in a job that does not now exist, using a technology that currently only lives in the mind of researchers - or perhaps even the imagination of your sixth-grade, First Lego League little sibling. Some day, some of you will live in a house that has not yet been built, on a street that has not yet been paved, in a city that has not yet discovered the industry that will cause its economy and housing market to boom. Some of you struggled because the technology you need to thrive has not yet become available to you. For me, in 1984, that missing technology was: The backspace button. Yup, that little button on every laptop, desktop and even your phone was not something I could use in high school. We had electric typewriters that used ribbons which required you to stop typing to fix an error. And for someone who makes as many errors as I did (and still do), it made success in typing class impossible. A few years later, when I started my first newspaper job, my first computer, a prehistoric Apple Classic with a 9-inch screen, was, indeed equipped with a backspace bar -- and even a Control Z option that lets me fix lots of mistakes at once. As much as our school district offers, and as hard as our administrators and teachers work to equip you with all of the tools you need, there simply are going to be things that you discover in the near future that will make you say, "Wow, I wish our high school would have had that."� I used to tell my high school friends that a high school is like a small pond compared to the ocean. I realized now that I was wrong. Comparing the world outside the walls of the building you are leaving for the last time as a student this weekend is more like comparing the ocean to a tiny tabletop fish bowl. Outside those walls, of course, are challenges you have never imagined. But also, out there, are the ideas and technologies and the people who will show you how to use them to meet those challenges. And someday - perhaps right here in our town, or some place you have not even yet heard of - there will be a reminder that you were here, and how you made this world - or at least your corner of it - a better place. Yup, it's a cliché. My apologies. But it's true.