Big Bend Community College President Sarah Thompson Tweedy addresses graduates at the Columbia Basin Job Corps Center during the center’s first public graduation ceremony since the outbreak of COVID-19. “You have much to be proud of,” Thompson Tweedy told graduates.
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.” ...