Yulia Orduno-Hernandez (front) and Suzanna Vargas (rear), two of this December’s graduates from the Columbia Basin Job Corps program, as they listen to commencement speakers during the center’s first public graduation ceremony in nearly three years on Friday.
December 10, 2022
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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.” ...