One Moment, Please… The Next Chapter for 2026 Graduates

First, congratulations to the high school graduates of 2026!

While this event closes out a significant chapter of your life, it also signals the beginning of the rest of your life.

The Winding Journey

There is no set path for where life will take you.

After high school, I had planned to become a veterinarian.  I worked at a veterinary clinic in Rochester while in high school, and I learned about the various challenges veterinarians face.  It’s definitely not an easy job, and I commend those in the field.

Well, obviously, I’m not a veterinarian.  I couldn’t survive inorganic chemistry and invertebrate zoology in my first year of college, so I was out.

So, I switched my major to computer science.  After I barely survived discrete mathematics, I realized I was not in my element.  I figured I had better take a break from college while I figure out what I want to do for the rest of my life.

While working in the newspaper business and attending college, I was transferred several times to locations in Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.  While in the land of the Hoosiers, I went back to school with a better sense of knowing my place in the world.  I finished up at Purdue University with a degree in business management while I was publisher of The La Porte County Herald Argus.

I ended up in the newspaper business by default.  I found out what I was good at by finding out what I wasn’t good at.  I was never meant to be a veterinarian or a computer science guru, but I did learn things from those academic programs that I still have in my storage banks.  Namely, I appreciate what it takes to be successful in those fields.

That winding road of decisions, speckled with disappointment and failure, led me in the direction where I found my calling.

I was told long ago that I’d need to step out of my comfort zone if I wanted to grow personally and professionally.

Being willing to move wherever my company needed me made all the difference in the world.  I met a lot of people and learned a lot of new ways to approach situations.  I learned how to be resourceful and independent.  I learned how to anticipate and solve problems.

So, for graduating seniors, please take note.  It’s not always a straight path to where you think you want to go.  Life will throw you curveballs, and those who can adapt well will have the most success.

Practice Writing

We will be losing four seniors from our Journal Student Writing Project, and we cannot be more excited for them as they take their writing talents to the next level.

From Fillmore Central, we’ll be losing Brennus Braaten, Savannah Huffman, and Micah Steffens.  We will also be missing out the thoughts and ideas presented by Madison Lile from Spring Grove.  They are part of 10 area high school students that participated in this program that has spanned 27 years.

Writing is truly an undervalued talent in this world, but you know outstanding writing when you see it.These students continue to tackle important issues, speaking to a huge audience in print and online.  I have spoken in classrooms at high schools throughout the area, and I often present our website statistics.  One of the top five most visited articles on our website was written by a student named Makayla Braaten back in 2019.  The title of the article is “Journal Writing Project: Is graffiti art or vandalism?”

What you write has wheels and can take you places.

About 15 years ago, following the Great Recession, we gained a phenomenal reporter covering both government and feature stories.  This person had lost their job during corporate layoffs in Rochester.  While this writer worked for us, they were searching for a marketing position that was in line with their previous career experience.

One day, this reporter asked me if I would be a reference for a position they were applying for similar to the corporate marketing position they had in the past.

After they went through the interview process and they were offered the job, this reporter called me and said that their stories published in the Fillmore County Journal were a contributing factor to getting hired.  I was surprised, and of course asked why.

Our reporter said that the president of the company they interviewed with did a Google search of this person’s name and found all of their stories on our newspaper website.  They hired this person because of their writing skills, which were readily accessible and clearly demonstrated with articles they found on the Internet.

We lost an outstanding reporter, but I’m happy for their continued success with their career path.

What you write matters.  How you write it matters.  It could help you get your dream job.