Job Corps graduates receive high praise

PALMER — It’s official.

The have been read into the record of congressional proceedings; they have earned certificates in accounting, health care, culinary arts, building construction, carpentry, electricity and office administration. And on Friday, August 21, about 50 Alaska students joined thousands of other graduates across the United States in graduating Job Corps at the local center in Palmer with Alaska Gov. Bill Walker and Alaska First Lady Donna Walker and U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan in attendance.

Walker and Sullivan each congratulated the graduates and offered words of support and encouragement as they went out into the world.

Walker drew a personal connection with graduates, particularly those of the carpentry program.

“I’m often introduced that I was a carpenter,” he said. “I don’t like to necessarily disagree with anybody but I am a carpenter and I’m very proud of that.”

Walker worked at various points during his career as a carpenter, Teamster, and pipeline laborer before ultimately earning a law degree from Seattle University. Even so, Walker told graduates it wasn’t technically true that he received his education after manual labor.

“I got my education building things,” he said. “I went out and got degrees after that, but building things as an education is beyond anything you could ever get. There’s a power to building something. Once you build something, you’re just a different person. Forevermore, you can go back to wherever it was and say I worked on that project; ‘I helped build that wall, that building.’”

The Palmer program services graduates come from all the regions of the state, Walker noted.

“What you have learned at Job Corps, my hope is you will be able to take it back to your communities, wherever they may be, and hopefully apply it there,” he said.

Sullivan touched on adversity, and drew parallels between the graduates’ personal situations and the tough fiscal climate.

“Some of you on your road here have faced adversity,” he said. “All of you have done what’s so important in life: you picked yourself up after some falls. I think we can safely say there’s no one, even the people on this stage, who haven’t failed at something in their life. And the key thing that differentiates people that fall and continue to be successful, they’re willing to dust themselves off, pick themselves up, pick up their lunch pail and get out there.”

Alaskans were also relying on the graduates, Sullivan said.

“We’re all depending on you: your communities, your families, your state. We need you,” he said. “We need you to be productive as you can be. We need you to be the leaders of this state, to be sitting up here some day as a leader of this state.”

Sullivan’s remarks were often lighthearted when talking about the graduates’ futures.

“You’ll be paying taxes, and you’ll have the opportunity to complain about them,” he joked. “You’ll get to complain about politics, but hopefully not about politicians like me and the governor.”

Commencement speaker and class president Charrier Stone told graduates to focus on maintaining their interpersonal skills, in addition to advancing professionally.

“It’s been a real pleasure being president,” she said. “Keep it going. I helped build this nice clean voice, but at the same time, use your own voice now. Don’t let anybody take anything from you, okay?”

Contact Reporter Brian O’Connor 352-2269, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.