LITTLE ROCK — This is the time of year when pundits write and talk about graduation and what it means to graduating seniors, their parents, their teachers and, of course, the general public for paying the taxes that have made it all possible.

I remember a few years ago - great Scott, it was more years ago than I want to think about - a few years ago when my daughter graduated from high school. I knew all her classmates, attended about every function imaginable that involved her and the school, drove hundreds of miles to competitive events that consumed countless dollars worth of that less-than-a-dollar-a-gallon gas. It was all worth it.

It was that year I wrote the traditional salute to those grads and mentioned all those things above with the focus on the good times. Of course, I chided them on to bigger and better educational and life challenges and experiences. Yes, it was all worth it.

And so it’s time to write another of those messages to today’s grads - all 111 of them in Gravette and all the happy, proud, relieved and excited grads in Decatur and Gentry.

Today, grads, I’m going a different direction. It is not to minimize the words above. I challenge you to reread those first four paragraphs. Think on them. And give thanks to those who have helped you reach this milestone.

But there is an even greater challenge. Stop a few moments and think about those “unnamed persons” with whom you have come in contact as you grew up. Think about some of those isolated experiences you had with persons whose names you haven’t thought about in years or possibly can’t even remember clearly; those persons who, through their everyday actions which you observed and through the interplay with their lives, helped shape your life; those who, at the time, didn’t even realize they were having an impact, however small, in helping make you the person you are today.

They are all there. Perhaps it was someone who gave you a second chance; who forgave you for a mistake; someone who offered a word of encouragement or a bit of advice when you thought no one cared; someone who may have dried a tear after you scraped your knee on the sidewalk; perhaps even a childhood playmate who didn’t join the group you thought was picking on you or who made remarks behind your back. Old. Young. They’re all there. You remember?

And so that other challenge as you enter adulthood is not just earning a master’s degree or earning a million dollars. A real challenge is for you to be like those persons who had those simple, insignificant positive influences on your life. Those acts that have added up to make you the kind of person you are today. The kind of person a graduate 20 years from now, or a year from now, or even when your hair is thinning or gray, will remember for an act of your selflessness that made that grad a better person.

Today’s memories are great for you. Cherish them. Remember them. But the greatest memory can be about you in the mind of a grad who, like you today, will stop and remember. That’s what makes it all worth it.

Dodie Evans is the editor emeritus of the Westside Eagle Observer and may be contacted by e-mail at [email protected].

Opinion, Pages 6 on 05/18/2011