Graduations

It’s graduation time here in Fayette County.

A sincere congratulations to all the Fayette County seniors who have earned their high school diplomas.

My own high school graduation was 30 years ago this month at Leopard Stadium. I don’t remember too much about the ceremony or the speaker, except how bittersweet the whole thing felt.

It’s graduation time in the Wick household, too.

Our oldest child, Ella, graduated from The University of Texas earlier this month.

If you are like me, endings always get me reminiscing back to beginnings.

I hope Ella doesn’t mind me sharing this story about her first day of class at UT four years ago.

She had double checked her schedule and walked the campus the day before, making sure she knew the layout and would get to all her classes without trouble.

But when she arrived, what she thought was sufficiently early, at her first class on the first day, the door was closed, the class was packed and the teacher was already instructing. She sheepishly walked in and took a seat, as the teacher paused and made a comment about punctuality.

She fought back tears. What kind of a start was this to college?

Had she misread the schedule?

Set her alarm clock wrong?

Turns out her only crime was getting to class so early that the previous class was still in there. The teacher that lectured her about punctuality wasn’t even her teacher.

She relayed the story to me and her mom that night, and she was still embarrassed.

I told her it was a memorable first day story that she would laugh about one day.

Fast forward four years and she was walking across a stage (early) Saturday morning May 9 with the rest of the English majors at Bass Concert Hall in Austin.

The graduation speaker at Ella’s ceremony was a UT grad Juliette Seive who is the Managing Director of Research at New York Times Games, the home of Wordle – a game played by tens of millions of people every day.

If you haven’t ever tried it, Wordle involves trying to guess a different five-letter word every day. I highly recommend trying it.

On a big screen during graduation, Seive orchestrated a custom Wordle game with the grads, and incorporated the guesses into her speech – words like “THINK” and “DREAM” and “SHARE” and “BRAVE” which Seive then expanded on as advice for the grads.

Little words that can mean a lot.

After the ceremony we had a picnic on campus and then took Ella out for a drink.

That night more than 8,000 UT grads across all majors, Ella included, packed into Royal Memorial Stadium along with 50,000 guests for the university-wide ceremony that included a speech from former UT quarterback Colt McCoy and then a fireworks and drone show (we watched it live online at home).

Then Ella joined a bunch of grads who did a celebratory jump into Littlefield Fountain on campus, then went out with friends to celebrate.

But the next morning she was up early waiting tables (go ask for her table at the Original Kerbey Lane Cafe in Austin, and tip generously!)

Even though she doesn’t think so, Ella’s diploma – just like the diplomas local high school kids are earning this week – are tickets to anywhere they want to go next (as long as they keep showing up, especially early).

Can’t wait to see where their hard work takes them all.