Dear editor,
My wife and I are residents of Marysville and alumni of Marysville High School. We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of the students in the Marysville Class of 2017 who qualified as valedictorians. They are very impressive and clearly deserving of recognition for their many accomplishments.
Having said that, it’s absurd that 28 students were selected to share that honor.
There should only be one valedictorian and one salutatorian, and everyone else should be recognized as the honor students they are with some appropriate form of honorable mention. To do otherwise is to send a message to our youth that they need not strive to be the best, but that being very good is sufficient.
We don’t get down to four finalists in college sports and call them all National Champions. We don’t have four Miss Americas.
I suspect the real issue is an administration that doesn’t have the courage to make the selection for fear of criticism by parents or others. It seems to me that, like it or not, making the difficult decision is your job.
Please reconsider the message you are sending to our students. Please let the one or two that are truly the best of the best be recognized as such.
John and Janet Hanby,
Both of the MHS class of 1964