Hundreds of area students walked across the stage last week prepared to start the next journey in their lives. More area graduations are on tap in the coming weeks.

Before we prepare for the week ahead, however, let’s take a look back at some of the highlights of last week:

-Students from Concordia Parish schools and Copiah-Lincoln Community College’s Natchez campus participated in graduation ceremonies that were filled with inspiring messages of hope about the future. The ceremonies resulted in 329 diplomas being awarded to graduates in our area. We congratulate all the recent graduates and wish them well in their future endeavors.

-The Natchez-Adams School District kicked off a community-wide project that aims to have all schools in the area, and even community members, read the same book and come together to share their thoughts on the text. The district picked a biography written by NFL player Michael Oher, whose story was told on the big screen in “The Blind Side.” We hope the project is successful in bringing together students from all the schools in our area.

-Sarah Rodriguez was named the STAR student at Trinity Episcopal Day School. The STAR student honor is awarded to the student who scores the highest ACT score at each school in the state. Rodriguez earned a 32 on the college preparatory test and selected her mother and Trinity teacher Linda Rodriguez as her STAR teacher. We congratulate Sarah on her success and wish her the best going forward.

Summer is right around the corner, so let’s keep our eyes on the prize and continue doing great things in our community this week.