Star HS basketball player tries to delay graduation ceremony with bomb threat

http://www.annarbor.com/news/crime/student-charged-with-threatening-to-put-bomb-at-graduation-ceremony/

This young man, chosen as the county player of the year, failed miserably in his attempt to delay the ceremony. It probably doesn't help that he called from a number that the school had on record for him.

 

Meanwhile, Red Sox draftee Ty Buttrey can walk at his graduation after his principal originally wouldn't let him because he skipped the rehearsal ... because he was waiting to be drafted and wasn't allowed to have his cell phone at the rehearsal.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/highschool-prep-rally/ty-buttrey-red-sox-draft-pick-walk-graduation-180126408.html

 

I can understand him not being at the rehearsal if he thought he was going to get drafted. The fact that they were talking about not letting him walk is crazy. Sometimes, a little common sense should be used.

 

As for the kid in Michigan, well, there's a show for him on television. It's called "World's Dumbest Criminals".

 

Had a local student who chose not to walk through graduation because she just didn't want to.

School got in a huff, withheld her diploma until the following week and made her come get it in person to explain herself.

Bastards. Attendance should not be mandatory.

 

My mother wasn't allowed to walk at her graduation 50+ years ago because she was one credit short in English. And the reason why she was one credit short was because her guidance counselor told her to take a different class that, they said, would fulfill the requirement. The counselor fucked up and the class didn't count.

Her father (my grandfather) had died at the beginning of her senior year, and my mom said several teachers went to bat for her and begged the administrators to let her walk. They wouldn't.

She got her diploma alright, after taking the class in night school. When she told me this story, I told her how today, all she would have to do is mention getting a lawyer and the school would have caved. She agreed with me, but noted that just wasn't how things were done back then.

 

I think it's common practice that if you don't go through graduation you have to come and get your diploma yourself.

 

I never understood all the hoopla behind graduation, but maybe that's because I'm younger and it doesn't seem to mean as much anymore because just about everyone does it.

Personally, the only reason I walked was for my parents. It meant a hell of a lot more to them than it meant to me. Had they not been able to make it, I probably wouldn't have walked. What do you really get out of it? Some personal satisfaction? I got that from getting the degree, not walking in front of an arena full of mostly strangers.

 

Yeaahhh. Also, not wanting to go to your graduation would be enough of a red flag to me that I would want to chat with the student / parents a bit anyway. This isn't prom, which I can understand not going to, because it's a really high pressure social situation for kids. Graduation always seems like a blast - bittersweet at times, and it can be stuffy as hell, but I didn't want to go my HS graduation at first but in hindsight, I'm happy I did.

Now college graduation, that's a whole different animal. I skipped that.

 

I didn't go to high school graduation. Didn't see graduating as a real accomplishment.

Why would you miss college graduation, though? You paid for that.

 

I didn't go to my high school graduation. I didn't really like the school and figured one less day I had to be there was good.did I also figured that you were supposed to graduate from high school and didn't see it as much of an accomplishment. I was going to college and figured I would be in that graduation ceremony. I did graduate from college - it just happened 12 years later.

I found out later that my mother was upset about it. Having children myself, I now know I should have been there.

 

I felt the same way. I appreciated my last few days of high school, and even moreso college, because I felt the whole "youth is fleeting" vibe. But as for walking on the stage and getting the diploma/degree? Meh. Take it or leave it.
And then, on the stage for my college graduation, it all clicked.
While waiting for my name to be called, I caught a glimpse of my parents and my sister and saw the pride in their faces. And then I started thinking about how many people from my high school didn't go to college. How me and my sister were the only ones in our entire family (including about a dozen cousins) who had made it to this point. How my mom had sacrificed by working three jobs to help put me through school.
It was an accomplishment, dammit. Not just for me, being a culmination of four years of work, but for them. It was something for our family to be proud of.
I never once thought about not walking. It never even occurred to me that you could choose to skip it, honestly. But with the benefit of hindsight, not walking would've turned one of my proudest moments in life into a selfish act that I'd be ashamed of forever.