Graduation questions Dear editor:

I enjoy reading the “Viewpoints” section of The Sentinel-Record, a main reason for my subscription. What I find to be a little too much is when people chose to make one topic the main issue for weeks on end. Therefore, I decided to weigh in on the ASMSA storyline.

I was getting to the point of thinking that too much was written concerning the Hillary Clinton speaker invitation until I read the Viewpoints letters in the Sunday, May 19, newspaper. Thanks to letters by Reggie Coleman, Lloyd Hoffman and Doc Crawford, I learned news about the school I didn’t previously know. I had no idea that a protest was going to take place by the Citizens for the American Agenda; a group I have never heard of. I had no knowledge that a student was sexually assaulted on campus and the lack of the administration’s need to investigate. The Republican club for students was denied; misuse of funds at the school, doesn’t sound like a place I would have sent my child without investigating their practices. I also didn’t know Hillary was a founding member of the ASMSA. And I thought it was nice of her not to be charging the school for her appearance to speak.

Then front page news on Tuesday, May 21, “ASMSA commencement with Clinton will be ticketed event.” We receive news that around 3,000 people are expected to attend the ceremony according to Donnie Sewell, ASMSA’s public information specialist, he even states that graduations do not usually require a ticket. I wasn’t upset until Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs, made the comment “same as all of our other graduations. It’s just a regular graduation except it’s ticketed.” What I didn’t like was the fact that graduating students received 20 tickets, others receiving tickets were family, alumni and other stakeholders in the school. Nowhere was the price of the tickets or where the money was going. I ask the question: “Are all the schools using the Bank OZK Arena being charged for their ceremonies?”

Jennifer Wolcott, director of operations for Visit Hot Springs, stated the Arkansas Basketball Tournament this year used the arena and “probably had 55,000 people (total), give or take and it went off really good that weekend.” So, by comparison, I see the 3,000 invitations as a paid political event. I could be wrong or possibly Emily Baccam of The Sentinel-Record didn’t ask enough questions. Her article was very nice and it would have simply helped the people reading it if we knew where the money for tickets was going, and if other graduation classes were ticketed and seats limited.

I remember graduations being held in school gymnasiums or on the school’s football field. The two graduations I attended this year for my grandsons were held in the LH Wolf Arena and at a Baptist church in Memphis. The latter was a private school affair for home-schooled graduates. So I may be out of touch with school practices.

Just a concerned reader, L.J. Gibson Hot Springs