Contributing writer
If you missed last weekend’s melodrama performance by the high school students, you truly missed a fun evening in Marion. As I sat there on Friday night, I laughed quite a bit, but as I was watching the show, a thought crossed my mind. It is absolutely amazing in how many things our high school students in this community are involved.
They are first and foremost students attending class and doing homework (ideally speaking of course). Some of them are in choir or band and they are preparing for spring concerts.
Some are athletes coming off of basketball, wrestling, and cheerleading and starting into track and field, baseball, softball, and golf. Some of them are preparing for college by taking college level courses, writing applications for scholarships, or studying for and taking entrance exams like the SATs and ACTs.
Some of them are involved in forensics, which if you don’t know what that is like — I didn’t before moving here — is a series of public speaking competitions. Some of them are involved in FFA. Some of them are part of the Key Club. Some were in the melodrama.
Some of them hold down jobs at any number of businesses in the community or on their family farms. Some of these same students are also involved in our local congregations participating in youth groups or leading parts of worship.
Beyond all these things, they are busy managing incredibly sophisticated social networks using Facebook, Twitter, text messaging, and some of them have video games that they compete in, with or against their friends. They are communicating with each other from just after they wake up in the morning to just before they go to sleep at night (which more often than we care to believe is actually very early morning the next day).
Now I realize there aren’t students who are involved in all of the things in the above paragraphs, and there are some students who aren’t involved in any of the things listed, including class, unfortunately, but we have quite a few students who are involved in a lot of the things listed, and they are incredibly busy young people.
We as adults in this community need to let them know how much we appreciate all their efforts. Showing up for graduation after four years is not enough. If you are impressed with how one of them did in the melodrama, or you saw their name in the newspaper for honor society, or one of them was incredibly courteous helping you out at the grocery store, let them know how much you appreciate it.
Send a card, or text them, or direct message them on Twitter, or message them on Facebook; they are incredibly accessible. They might not let you know how much they appreciate it, but they need to know we are proud of them.