We salute the host of college and high school graduates who strolled across the stage this month, clutching their diplomas.

While graduation is certainly a recognized rite of passage, it is also a time of reflection and hope. Now, more than ever, we need every area graduate.

Lofty goals and sentiments are often legion during graduation — as they should be — but the basic fact remains that the nation, the state and the local community needs every one of those graduates to step out into the adult world with a goal to make a difference.

It may appear easy to dismiss the notion that a single person can make an impact, but the truth is each young man and woman who walks off the graduation stage this month can make a difference.

And we need those who want and can make a difference.

At a time when the nation is rife with division, where discord is consumed like an energy drink, America, Oregon, Union and Wallowa counties need young people who still retain the determination of their youth. People who are ready and eager to step up and seek change.

Our greatest resource as a nation is our youth.

Our prospects, our opportunities for success as a county, state and nation rest on the hopes and desires of our young people.

Our young are the agents of our future, and the potential they represent is as valuable as any new policy, law or idea.

Granted, we remain the greatest nation on Earth in terms of goals and values, and at no time in our shared history have chances of a happy life for our youths been more acute than now.

Yet challenges, risks, also remain for our youths. There is no way to deny that the obstacles the nation and the state face are significant. The perceived problems stack up easily, and solutions often are fleeting.

That is why the views, the ambitions, of those who have just graduated are so important to our collective prosperity. We need every one of the new graduates to feel they can make a difference, that they can help their community, their state and even their nation.

We salute every single graduate from Eastern Oregon University and all of our area high schools. We hope that they will be able to move ahead in life with a calm but steady resolve to give back to their community and spark change for the good of all.