The Similkameen News Leader
Editorial
June 03, 2008
THE LEARNING CONTINUES
It occurred to me the other day that Grad week in Princeton would mark an anniversary for me.
It's thirty years since I graduated from KLO Secondary School in Kelowna. I was in the first Grad Class in the history of that school and there were 75 of us. That was considered a small Grad Class.
It's also been over thirty years since I started my first job oddly enough a paper route. It's an inside joke now as I enjoy pointing out that fact and adding,
'and thirty some years later I'm still delivering papers' but a lot has happened between those two jobs.
There's no doubt I took a different path after graduation. I didn't take a year off as many of my classmates did to travel North America, the World or wherever they went hoping to eventually come up with a future plan.
I had my future plan already decided. I knew in Grade 10 what I wanted to do, I just wasn't sure how I was going to get there. Through a series of interesting twists and turns, favours and considerations I ended up doing what I wanted to do and in my hometown!
My career eventually took me to Penticton and Princeton. It may not sound interesting, but I never wanted to venture far away from my hometown.
I made some bad mistakes along the way, but eventually married and settled down after a career change that put me where I am now; still doing something I enjoy in a place I now consider my home.
I wish everyone could be so lucky and I do consider myself lucky. I'm sure the path would have been very different if I grew up in Princeton, for example.
A conversation the other day with a former local Grad confirmed that with me. It's got to be very difficult for career-minded students who know pretty much right away they have to leave the comfort of their hometown to become whatever it is they want to become.
It actually says something about the community, too. But those things are changing and eventually local students will have more opportunities that will keep them in their hometown so they can contribute to the local economy and help build the community as they start to get married and settle down and start families in their hometown.
Let's hope it doesn't take thirty years for that to happen.
