It’s that time of year again – graduation.

One of my many duties here at The DAILY LEADER consists ofediting school and college news.

This time of year I receive literally dozens of news releasesfrom high schools and colleges announcing awards, scholarships andgraduates.

It takes me quite some time to get them all into the newspaper,but believe me – they all get in. If the schools send them, I runthem. If the parent brings it in, I run it.

There are no shortages of school news.

I’m sure you all have seen all of the area schools’ graduatingseniors that have been running in the paper almost every day andwill continue this coming week.

These have always been really popular with the seniors and withtheir parents and families. And believe me, when I say: “It is nosmall task.”

We start planning for the graduation special pages for eachschool just before spring break in March. Letters and faxes aresent out to all of the schools, which then pass out the forms tothe graduating seniors. The seniors fill them out and the forms aresent back to the newspaper.

It is then up to our staff to get these all typed, proofed andput into print. There are more than 775 students who are candidatesfor graduation in our county and the surrounding counties thisyear. Again, no small task but we always seem to get it pulledtogether.

Another logistic is getting photos from each of the schools oftheir graduating class. Most of the schools have taken it uponthemselves to either take their own photos or get a photographer totake them. We still take a few of them.

I’ve found it interesting to see what background the seniorschoose for their photos each year. One year a school chose a firetruck that had seniors hanging from nearly every inch of it. It wasa very cute photo.

Being a mom, I realize just how precious each tidbit ofinformation is and just how special that little piece of newsprintwith your child’s name on it becomes.

It represents another milestone in his or her growth. And let’sface it, as parents we don’t want to miss a thing.

When I was a child my grandmother cut out every piece ofnewsprint that had my name attached to it.

To this day, she has pages and pages of photo albums thatchronicle my school years. There are newspaper clippings from whenI made the honor roll; from when I was a cheerleader; from my yearsof playing volleyball; from my dance and gymnastic recitals andperformances; and yes, there are several from the year I graduatedfrom Brookhaven High School.

But the clippings didn’t stop there.

When I went to work at the newspaper, she continued to cliparticles I wrote that she liked or photos that I’d taken. She evenclips a few of my columns from time to time. Just a couple of weeksago my photo was in the newspaper from where I visited the RotaryClub. She cut that out, too.

I’m not a youngster any longer, but those clippings become partof our family histories. And yes, I realize how precious thosesmall tidbits about your students and graduates are to you. Theyare precious to me, too.

And before I ask about your week, I want to say a special thankyou to Sarah Holcombe for helping with the 2010 graduates. She isone of the never-seen behind-the-scenes people who help get yourchildren’s information typed and proofed!

And how was your week?

Lifestyles Editor Tammie Brewer can be reached at The DAILYLEADER at (601) 833-6961 ext. 134, by e-mail attbrewer@dailyleader.com or you can write to her at P.O. Box 551,Brookhaven MS 39602.