Ravenwood - 06/20/05 07:00 AM
Earlier this month, students from Aquin High School celebrated their high school graduation with a celebratory cigar. Their photo made the paper, so naturally the pleasure police are outraged. Kathleen Runte, principal of the school is apologizing for the photo, and in a letter to the editor entitled "Lessons learned from graduation cigars" she lashes out at the media for publishing the photo. (entire letter posted below)
Mea culpa! On behalf of the Aquin 2005 graduates, I apologize to those who were offended by the picture you published of them with their celebratory cigars. Even though cigars have a cultural history of denoting congratulations (i.e. birth of a child, etc.) the argument has been made that they are not the best choice for a high school graduation. I agree.Cuckoo, cuckoo. So according to the pleasure police moonbats, cigars are "indefensible", smoking one will ensure that you never smoke again, and publishing photos of cigar smokers is "tabloid journalism". Talk about melodramtic. On the other hand, this should be good news for all you cigarette addicts that want to quit smoking - just smoke a cigar.In fact, Aquin has an extensive educational program regarding the dangers of tobacco use and strong peer support for not smoking.
Our school has hosted the Relay for Life cancer fund drive for many years. This year, there are five teams participating from the Freeport Catholic Schools. The teams include more than 60 Aquin students (54 percent of the student body) who have worked diligently throughout the school year to raise funds for cancer research.
What began as an act of emancipation a few years ago became, over time, the thing to do. Even though graduation marks the end of a certain period of education, the students learned some lessons from this incident:
- A picture may not accurately summarize an event, but it is worth a thousand words.
- Don't engage in an indefensible action.
- Tabloid journalism sells newspapers.
- Cigar smoke stinks!
- Smoking a cigar is a good way to ensure that one will avoid smoking for the rest of one's life!The Aquin graduates regret that your paper choice to pictorially symbolize a very solemn, spiritual and meaningful event in their lives by your questionable photo selection.
This experience will be added to many others as they learn to navigate through their adult lives. Permeating all of them, however, will be the gratitude for the continuing support of the Freeport community.
Kathleen Runte, principal
Aquin High School
Category: Pleasure Police
Comments (6) top link me
At my high school graduation, right after we processed out, about 90% of the guys lit up stogies right there with all the faculty and parents. Heck, a few of the guys were puffing away while still sitting up on the stage. It's tradition. Of course, this is a private school, so we can do stuff like not flip out because a few 18 year olds are smoking cigars at a certain school sponsored event, and not flip out if someone has a pocket knife or advil in his backpack.
Posted by: Nate at June 20, 2005 10:19 AMI grew up before Virginia banned smoking for minors, so kids who smoked would walk to the other side of the parking lot and light up just a few feet off of school grounds.
It wasn't uncommon to see them huddled together over there during lunch or before and after school.
Posted by: Ravenwood at June 20, 2005 10:24 AMI graduated from high school in 2000. So, there were plenty of folks who probably didn't like the tradition and lots of parents who certainly disapproved. But, it was tradition, and we didn't have any of those zero tolerance rules, so no one did anything.
It's hard to imagine how messed up public schools have gotten... On a daily basis, I did things that would get me expelled from a public school. I had a pocket knife either in my pocket, or in my backpack every day from 6th grade until graduation, I had advil in my backpack during football season, trivial things that would have gotten me expelled somewhere else. And lest you think that my school was so bad that they didn't worry about knives because they had bigger problems... Most people didn't lock their lockers and everyone would leave his backpack in the hall. Stuff just didn't get stolen.
Okay, now I feel like an old fart reminising about "the good old days." (Like when the new wawa was selling gas for $.33 a gallon the first summer I got my license and I had an '84 civic with a 6 gallon tank... I'd walk in with a five, fill my tank, get a gatorade and a three muskateers and have change...)
Posted by: Nate at June 20, 2005 12:21 PMOh, by the way... this school is a private school in VA that you've probably heard of.
Posted by: Nate at June 20, 2005 12:22 PMAquin is a great school. I graduated from there many decades ago. The principal, Kathleen Runte is a great leader and role model, Aquin carries on many traditions that the students gradnparents observed as they attended Aquin, such as the Prom Drawing.
The Prom Drawing is the boys draw the girls names from a fishbowl, for their date to the Junior- Senior Prom.
The school is in Illinois.
Posted by: Jim at July 12, 2005 12:46 PM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
