I have found that as I reach a “certain age” new experiences become less frequent, either because I’m not as adventurous as I once was or because I’ve just experienced a fair amount in the past half century. Thus, it was with some eagerness that I accepted the invitation of a friend’s daughter to attend her graduation last Sunday from a small rural high school in northwest Missouri: Mid-Buchanan High School, just a mile or so from Exit 35 on I-29.

Mid-Buchanan is set amid beautiful rolling fields; it is a small school: the graduating class numbered only 47. At 2 p.m. last Sunday these 47 students walked across the stage of the school gymnasium to receive their diplomas amid the wild cheering of a few hundred of their closest relatives, friends, and neighbors. The school band played in their honor and the choir performed for the attendees.

The faces of the graduating seniors shone with hope — and, perhaps, a little trepidation, for they understood that this ceremony was more than the end of their secondary education. These students and the whole crowd knew that this was a coming-of-age, a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood, a critical moment between their comfortable pasts and their still undetermined futures.

I have to confess that even though I’ve been to dozens of graduation ceremonies over the years, something in which every academic becomes an expert, my experience at Mid-Buchanan was both new and rather inspiring. Places like this, small rural communities, are the heart and soul of America. As the young man who was valedictorian of his class eloquently said, some of his classmates would go on to university, some into the work force in these recessionary times in which work is not easy to find, some into the military to defend all of us, and some to seek adventure in untraditional ways.

The class had put together a video slide show for themselves and their friends and families. It was not about all the things they’d done in high school. Rather, it was a montage of photographs of each class member, starting with baby pictures and ending with their formal graduation poses.

These students had been together as a class since kindergarten. It was very clear that they had formed a close community and knew that after this last ceremony that community would forever change. This is the price Americans pay for our social and geographic mobility.

I have written before in this column extolling the virtues of small town America. Having grown up in New York City, having lived in an apartment complex with more residents than all the towns whose students attend Mid-Buchanan High, I know urban life with its impersonal lack of community all too well. Places like Buchanan County, and Douglas County as well, are the real America. It is in these places that one can see the true meaning of being part of a community, of being a neighbor and caring about those with whom we live.

It is from small communities and small schools that the United States has drawn its greatest leaders, many of its poets and artists, as well as its military heroes. There was no way to miss the pride of the folks at Mid-Buchanan when they stood to pledge their allegiance to the flag or the genuine warmth they felt toward each other’s children when at the end of the ceremony several hundred people converged on the new graduates to hug them and wish them their best.

I’m grateful to Samantha, the young woman who invited me to be a part of her graduation, for permitting me to be a part of her community for a few hours. It was a wonderful day. I hope that the happiness in so many faces I saw on Sunday will be repeated everywhere and for everyone who graduates this spring. My hope for all of the graduates from every school and college across America this spring is that the future may hold peace, prosperity, and happiness for them all.