The answers were so crystal clear – how were they not seen by all?
There you go, I’ve wet your whistle with curiosity as to where Prissie is headed with that lead-in. You won’t have long to wait to find out that I will be all over the place today with so much happening in Jackson County every day. First and foremost, we are slap dab in the middle of graduation – a glorious time of year. Kids becoming adults and entering what is referred to as the real world. End of fiscal year for city, county, state, school boards is a month away with budgets coming up for the upcoming year. What a time to be alive!
Let’s take things one by one so we don’t overlook anything or anyone. You know I have fact checkers and negative nannies looking over my shoulder so I have to be thorough. This week, after a very long public hearing, five graduations thus far, and a host of important information being requested by our loyal readers, I’ve come to the conclusion that 5:30 a.m. to 11:15 p.m. is definitely not on the menu for doable hours in one day for me. That being said, I’m up and at it bright and early today to insure my thoughts are heard.
I will openly say that today’s gibberish is as usual only MY opinion and I openly admit there are thousands of differing opinions so you may pick and choose. Last Friday started Jackson County’s graduations for the year. A few kindergarten ones may have been slipped in but for the most part, that was the first big day. Hope School went off without a hitch and smiles on everyone’s faces. A true joy to witness so much love from the staff and students there. Kudos to Dr. Millicent Braxton, her staff, and students.
The next graduation was in Malone with weather not an issue as far as where their event was held. It was dry as a bone inside the gym and everyone was on their best behavior. Principal Bryant Hardy and his staff had all their ducks in a row and kept them corralled throughout the evening.
The final graduation of the night was Marianna High School and they had reason to be extra excited because that was the first time in my memory that they were not the last class to graduate. That’s a good reason to be excited, right? Not Cottondale will have that distinction this year. We have been so blessed with rain, rain and more needed rain in the last 10 days. Drought was taking its toll on everyone. There was a plan in place as there always is for an alternative graduation sight in the event of rain or other conditions. The parent portal was in place and set to alert parents at 5:00 p.m. if there would be a change from the field to the gym/auditorium at MHS with the ceremony in the gym and the overload for lack of a better word of attendees in the auditorium watching on live feed. At 5:00 p.m., the alert went out that it was too early to call, decision to come at 6:00.
At that time, I was passing the football field and the parking lot was filling to the brim as well as they baseball field’s front parking area. Along with those filling up fast, vehicles were already starting to park on the sides of Caverns Road. I was in route to deliver supper towards Greenwood/Bascom area. My windshield wipers were on so there was rain falling. When I was returning to Marianna, as I was traveling south on Highway 71 near Sunland, I could see what I call brutal lightning. Next text came at 7:32 to move to the gym with graduation set to start at 8:30. No one can be 100% right all the time. No one can always foresee what’s coming and that’s a fact. Outside scheduled events are always going to be up to the powers that be up above. The best we can do on earth, is to make the best decision possible for the safety of all involved.
This is in no way to slam anyone. I have lived through the class of 2020 not having anything close to a normal graduation, but rather a drive thru one. Six years later, those memories are still very vivid. It was for the safety of everyone at the time that decision was made. Lightning in the area of metal bleachers, metal chairs, etcetera is not in the best interest of anyone. At some point in the decision making, you have to make a really tough decision that you know parents, relatives, everyone is going to second guess for the safety of all involved. Hindsight is 20/20 every time and hindsight, and calls to our office and my cell phone clearly stated MHS graduation should have been moved. Those calls were made up to 24 hours AFTER the fact. So, therefore hindsight was a no brainer. That being said, imagine being at the ‘top’ and having to make that call. You move everyone, and voila the weather clears and everyone could have seen their child, grandchild, brother, sister graduate life and not through a video or in a packed gym. Would you want to be that person who made that decision then? I think not. I have given you both scenarios of the calls received at our office and to my cell phone so you make the call for the next big event and let me know how it turns out when a decision is needed over something as memorable as someone’s graduation.
I’ve fussed, ranted, been critical of decisions over and over but when it’s all said and done, I’m equally as quick to give credit where credit is due. Even though, there were unforeseeable issues that further complicated a smooth move from the football field to the gym (cars still trying to enter for the event at the field versus cars trying to get out of parking areas and to the gym) the graduation itself was as memorable as can be.
At this point, I don’t know whose shoulder the decision will fall on next year, but if you’d like to volunteer to make it, shoot me a text, call me, email, or use snail mail and I’ll pass your name and information along to the appropriate parties. For now, that’s all there is but rest assured you’ll be hearing about last night’s county commission meeting next week. Have a great day and thank you Lord for the rain, Prissie.
