Another year has quickly passed, and we’re nearing the end of high school graduation season.

Mifflin County High School will stage its graduation ceremonies tonight. Juniata and East Juniata high schools, along with Belleville Mennonite School, held their graduations last week.

Graduation is typically accompanied by mixed emotions for students, parents and families throughout the Juniata Valley.

There will be tears of joy and sadness — joy of reaching a milestone and sadness that they and their classmates will go their separate ways after years of being together.

In many cases, that beginning will lead students out of the house and out of their parents’ daily care for the first time as the young adults pursue their next challenge.

Whether it’s next week or in a couple of months, that separation comes with trepidation for both students and their families — especially for students heading off to the military.

Graduation will also bring a sense of pride in the achievement of not only the various award winners — valedictorians, salutatorians or honor roll students — but of every student who is standing tall, wearing a cap and gown.

For parents, there will be nostalgia — remembering the days when yellow school buses took today’s seniors off to first grade, of the innocence this year’s graduates once had, of yesteryear’s need for guidance replaced by today’s independence.

In some cases, there will be relief, too, as the yearn to learn unfortunately doesn’t always start when students are in high school, creating bumps in the road that make just getting to this day a little more taxing.

We salute those students for their perseverance, too.

There is no set formula for a successful career path. Just because a student is No. 1 in the class doesn’t guarantee a doctoral degree. Nor is the student who found himself in detention more than a few times destined to failure.

There are positive and negative foundations that can be built upon and overcome.

With the almost daily changes in information technology, life for today’s students is moving much faster than in the days when their parents and grandparents were children, adding to the challenges and opportunities that await.

We wish all our graduates the best of luck while hoping they can apply the knowledge and perseverance that they’ve gained so far.

And one more thing: Please don’t drive too fast.