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Renee Murphy fiddles with her mortar board as she prepares for graduation at the Columbia Basin Job Corps Center on Friday. Murphy was one of eight young people to graduate in December in the center’s first graduation ceremony since the imposition of lockdowns and restrictions in response to the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020.

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Graduation Day
December 12, 2022 1:25 a.m.

Graduation Day

Columbia Basin Job Corps hosts first public ceremony since pandemic

MOSES LAKE — A last chance for success in life. That’s how Columbia Basin Job Corps Civilian Conservative Center Director Maynard Spell described what the center does as it trains young people for work in the construction trades, building maintenance, managing offices, cooking in professional kitchens, and being nurses and caregivers. It’s also one reason he said Friday’s public graduation ceremony — the first since lockdowns and restrictions were imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 — was so important. “The graduation symbolizes the burden of hardship that (our students) dealt with prior to coming here,” Spell said. “Upon arriving here, succeeding and meeting their goals, this graduation is the closure of a successful chapter and the start of another chapter in their lives.” ...