Audience behavior embarrassing

My family attended the graduation ceremony for the class of 2014 at the Curry County Events Center on Friday.

I would like to compliment those in charge for a ceremony conducted with the utmost dignity and decorum.

Thank you to the band for the processional music; the memory video was lovely, the speakers were well prepared with worthwhile messages, and the handing out of diplomas was smooth and uneventful.

The audience behavior, however, was something else entirely.

My family and I sat to the right (east) of the main stairs leading to the arena. As the students were handed their diplomas, it started as a trickle. First the families whose last names started with A, B or C got up and began to leave. Then it became a stream, and then a river of people leaving.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, instead of walking around the top, the attendees on the north side of the arena came down to ground level crossing in front of those seated in chairs on the floor. Then they clomped their way up the main stairs to the entrance.

The crowd of families leaving became so bad during the recessional that people from the north side actually crossed through the line of graduates in their attempt to leave early.

We are now a country of “me-first” mentality and only “my child” is important. The appalling lack of respect shown to the graduates is an embarrassment to our community.

If this is the new norm, then I suggest that next year’s graduates begin from the Zs and make the As, Bs and Cs sit for the entire thing.

Linda Baldock

Clovis