Graduation is a week away for many San Benito County seniors.
The class of 2007 has a lot to celebrate. That being said, there is
no reason to go overboard.
Graduation is a week away for many San Benito County seniors. The class of 2007 has a lot to celebrate. That being said, there is no reason to go overboard.
Graduation is a moment many will cherish for the rest of their lives. However, we feel the need to remind everyone of the two things that can ruin graduation: Outlandish senior pranks and alcohol.
Despite what your friends think, any senior prank that includes damaging school property, vandalism, breaking federal or state laws, or results in you not being able to attend the graduation ceremony is not funny. Your friends will forget about what you may think is an awesome prank long before your parents forgive you for not being able to walk down the aisle at commencement.
You also don’t want to spend the summer after your senior year working to earn money to repay the school for all the damage you caused. Trust us, it is much better to save that money for having fun in college.
Don’t believe us? Ask the four San Benito High School students arrested in 2005 for tying up a pig from the Future Farmers of America barn the day before graduation. After being excluded from the graduation ceremony, the four students faced felony charges of grand theft, conspiracy and cruelty to animals.
Alcohol and graduation don’t mix. Spend your time at graduation reminiscing with friends, not getting drunk.
Besides, we have seen far too many alcohol-related graduation tragedies. Please, heed this advice: don’t drink and graduate and don’t drink and drive. Graduation is a time to think back on what you have accomplished and thank all those who helped you get this far. It is not an excuse to get drunk. Graduation, in many ways, marks the threshold between childhood and adulthood. Your decisions as you prepare to enter the adult world are important.
As a community we need to do all that we can to make sure our students have a safe and sober graduation. This means parents shouldn’t be throwing booze-fueled graduation parties.
If you have a party with alcohol for graduates and one of them drives away, you could get thrown behind bars and be out $1,000. It seems some parents think teens are going to drink anyway and mistakenly believe they are setting up a safety net by allowing them to consume alcohol at a party at home. Such actions may seem smart, but allowing teens to drink creates a tremendous liability for the community. If a student slips away at some point and gets behind the wheel, he or she could cause an accident. God forbid, but they might end up killing themselves or someone else.
Let’s a have a safe, memorable graduation weekend that all can enjoy. The Class of 2007 has earned it.
