Delighted school administrators and faculty, proud parents, enthusiastic graduates, beaming siblings, envious underclassmen and sleeping journalists.
Yep, there's nothing like the pomp, circumstance and thrill of another spring season of high school graduations.It's been 10 years since I covered my first one - Bear River High School in Tremonton. The adrenalin still kicks in just thinking about it.
Everybody was there: the mayor, school board members, moms and dads, the media and even Miss Wheat and Beet. Needless to say, a good time was had by all.
My journalistic career has seen a long, blurry succession of graduations following that first one, each punctuated with pearls of pubescent wisdom that I have eagerly shared with unwary readers.
About five years and dozens of graduations later, though, I began noticing uncanny similarities in the commencement speeches. The names of the student speakers changed from year to year, but their messages seemed to be become more and more alike.
I realized after awhile that I merely had to dust off a graduation story from a previous year and change the names of the speakers. I could then run the old story to describe the latest graduation ceremony, and hardly anyone would notice any difference.
Invariably, practically every graduation features talks on the graduates' limitless potential, on how quickly high school passed, on how smart all the graduates became and on how the graduates shouldn't forget to continue reaching for the stars, mountains, oceans, state line, etc. All of it, of course, is wrapped in a healthy dose of sentimentality.
Parents cry, teachers cry, students cry; even journalists cry (albeit for different reasons). The pattern has become even more pronounced the past few years since the publication of Robert Fulghum's "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten."
Some school districts are still debating whether to burn "Tom Sawyer," but it's Fulghum's book they should be after. By the time high school graduations ended last spring, I'd heard so many excerpts from the book that I began wondering whether my subsequent 18 years of primary, secondary and higher education were really necessary.
All of which brings us to this year's graduations. Since the past year has been fraught with historic global change, not to mention elation over Utah's new and improved educational funding, graduation speakers should have ample resources from which to fashion crisp, original, quotable oration.
I'm tempted to bring two writing pads, a tape recorder and extra pens, but I know I'll probably have more use for my blankie - especially when I hear the familiar refrains of Fulghum's kindergarten insights.
Here's a preview: "Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush."
And don't forget to say a prayer for the American Civil Liberties Union.