Editorial: Class of ’12, stick to your civics lessons

Congratulations, graduates. You have completed your high school education. The world awaits you.

Even if you turned 18 years old long before commencement day, walking across the platform and accepting your diploma always signals a major step into adulthood. With that step come new responsibilities and new opportunities to succeed and fail but always to grow.

Some of you will head to college. Some of you will head into the work force. Some will do a little of both.

Regardless of your path, this is your chance to start applying what you’ve learned to life’s challenges that await you.

One of those is citizenship. As you set aside your high school civics and history books, we hope you commit to civic involvement, namely voting, all your adult life. This presidential election, perhaps more than any other in your lifetime, belongs to you. This will be your first chance to vote, and how you go about it could shape not only your politics but also your government and your future. Thanks to redistricting after the 2010 census, this election also includes more state and local seats than standard elections do.

Will you vote as your parents have? Will you vote as your friends do? Or will you use your cognitive skills to research the issues, quiz the candidates and determine who meets your grade and then vote accordingly?

Graduates, you will face many challenges. Stand tall. Be confident. Apply what you’ve learned as you chart your pathes to success.

And as you commence into adulthood, we hope you will vote at each and every opportunity and thereby help keep your city, your county, your state and the nation on the best pathes possible.

Tags: opinion, editorials