The graduate

Her name is Aretta and she was the top graduating senior in her homeschool class. The graduation address was given by her superintendent, her primary instructor, her farmer-stockman father. Graduating with honors her 19 hours of college credit accomplished to date were recognized. Well yes her mother, a registered CPA, also most likely also played a part while running a full-time accounting business from their home.

The next stop for Aretta will be two years of study at Chadron then on to Scottsbluff to earn her degree and certificate as an RN, registered nurse. A personable and accomplished young lady it is easy to feel that her future will be bright and well accomplished.

The teacher’s comments were interesting in that the parents felt that some of the things being taught in public school are inappropriate for their daughter so they elected homeschooling “for just another year.” When it came to the morals of sexual experience, gender and human relations the parents were of the opinion that those things could be better taught and experienced at home. Then, too, it was a chance for the daughter to learn to drive a semi-truck and help out with farm work. She also participated in 4H projects and even a few extra-curricular activities with the local school. All in all a well-rounded education and hopefully the maturity to deal with the inevitable bad influences of today’s college life. Hers was a great path to follow for her two younger sisters.

In an aside, the teacher/dad commented that he too learned more teaching than he did the first time around as a student himself. The celebration of graduation was held in the farm shop which had been cleaned and rearranged to accommodate the crowd of relatives and other friendly well-wishers. Being rural Nebraska a culinary feast was part of the celebration complete with homemade ice cream to go on servings of the beautifully decorated cake.

Bruce, a former flying student of mine, didn’t mention that as a landowner farmer rancher he had the burden of paying taxes to support the local schools even though his daughter wasn’t enrolled in those schools. The family then paid for all the expenses of homeschooling their children. The same is true for parents that elect to enroll in charter schools. In Nebraska, there is no voucher system that follows the students to fund their education in other than the public school system. I visited with a member of the McCook school board and he was very much against such a voucher system explaining that the public school had no choice and had to accept and try to educate any student in their district that chose to attend. He too was concerned that a voucher system would drain their funding and they were required to keep their schools open to all comers.

Talk to any large landowner and they will point out that they pay the largest percentage of school taxes in Nebraska because schools are primarily funded by property taxes. The Nebraska Legislature this year paid lip service to the inequitable problem but to my knowledge, nothing got done. I am sure that all our legislators know that the present system is unfair but the majority represent cities whose residents benefit from the lighter tax load so are more interested in getting re-elected than evening out the uneven tax load. So it goes in our present version of democracy.

Have you had your Covid-19 shots? Do you have the Covid-19 passport to travel? Have your children, grandchildren also received their shots? There seems to be a big push currently to vaccinate our youth twelve years and older in this country. Some colleges have even stated that the vaccination for Covid-19 is a requirement for enrollment — no shots no enrollment. Yet for young people, current studies are showing that there is more danger from receiving the shot than for young persons to contract the disease itself. Evidently, the record is showing that the vaccination is potentially causing inflammation of the heart in an alarming percentage of young people. I understand that the CDC has called an emergency meeting to investigate the problem but as of now, their findings have not been released. So what are parents supposed to do—college including scholarships for their children or try to keep them safe or find a college that will accept them shots or no shots.

There is another option for baccalaureate and post-graduate degrees and that is those colleges that do it entirely non-resident. Many are the members of the military, both enlisted and officer ranks, that to their jobs while doing school online. Yes, those options don’t have the prestige, social life, or sports that attract so many of our youth to colleges and universities today. They also do not have all the current bad influences of rampant illicit sex, drugs and liberal progressive programs that teach Karl Marx socialism that is so prevalent today. Parents you do have choices.

That is the way I saw it.

Dick Trail