High School Graduations: The Start of Something New

Last week, I started working at the Elk Grove Citizen. For my first two assignments, I wrote about two graduations: Valley High and Florin High.

What made the assignments even more relevant to me is that my sister is a member of the class of 2007, graduating from Elk Grove High. In fact, Elk Grove's ceremony was before Valley's. I couldn't help but mentally compare the three graduation ceremonies. For instance, Valley and Florin both had student performers sing songs on-stage. They both also had skits, where a group of students would talk about and reminisce over events and memories from the last four years. Meanwhile, Elk Grove featured a student, a contestant in a Poetry Alive! competition, who recited Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken," one of my all-time favorite poems. Elk Grove also had its valedictorian and salutatorian give speeches, which didn't happen at Valley and Florin's ceremonies.

All three of these graduation ceremonies happened at Arco Arena. Although I've lived in the Sacramento area my whole life, I can count on one hand the number of times I've visited Arco (one of those times includes my own high school graduation, class of 2004). As a member of the press, I was able to interview students prior to the ceremonies, as they waited patiently behind the scenes. There was a sense of excitement and nervousness in the air as soon-to-be graduates shared their feelings and plans.