April and May of each year are like driving down the highway at 70 mph without a windshield. There’s a lot of stuff flying at me while I try to cruise ahead to my destination. It’s graduation season and there is so much to cover and capture.

It all begins at the beginning of April as the third quarter begins as I make contact with MMSD for help in identifying students who qualify for The Hues Row of Excellence, which is graduating seniors of color in Dane County who have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or greater. We start at this point because there won’t be any drastic changes in cumulative GPAs caused by one quarter of work.

There have been times in the 27 years that I have been doing a feature like this — its first edification was The Madison Times Hall of Fame — that the central office would hit the magic button on the computer and a list of eligible students would print out and these would be sent out to the multicultural services coordinators or guidance counselors. Now it appears that someone at each high school — whom I don’t know — generates the list.