The graduation announcements had been sent.

The eight ceremony tickets allocated.

But I was missing in action.

Today — if you are graduating and are irked at a school policy regarding the ceremony, the speaker or some-school related issue — the norm is to file a lawsuit, disrupt the ceremony or create some type of spectacle.

After all, it is about you.

I intentionally skipped my graduation from high school 49 years ago.

Some might characterize what I did was a protest.

But it really was about not wanting to be part of something that wasn’t inclusive.

Besides, as protests go, it was about as low profile as you could go.

Participation in graduation ceremonies is not a right, it is a privilege given that is not a state requirement.

Yes, I know. People have sued in California for the right to participate in a ceremony they were denied the ability to do so based on either disciplinary issues or simply not being able to make the proverbial grade.

I was to learn that fact a year later while serving as an elected Western Unified School District board member.

The parents of a special education student filed a lawsuit against the board because their son was not allowed to participate.

This wasn’t an issue of not mastering the requirements as you might expect of someone struggling with learning disabilities.

The other students in his class in similar situations were walking across the stage. They had met requirements that were adjusted to special education.

The problem was that his parents didn’t bother to make sure that he actually got to school on most days his senior year.

It was a bit more complicated than that, however in its purest form it was simply  a case of not being present.

That led to a first-hand lesson in how insurance companies calculate the cost of going to court to defend against a lawsuit that they agreed is frivolous and without merit versus settling for a lower amount to make the matter go away and reduce the impact on their bottom line.

So much for the segue.

Up until the end of April of 1974, I had full intention of participating in the graduation ceremonies.

Then it happened.

There was a classmate — Maria Ordorico — who was the first in her family to graduate from high school.

Her family was unable to come up with the $25 for the cap and gown.

Several of her classmates, including me, got wind of it.

During a senior class meeting, we were successful in getting a vote for the class to pay for the cap and gown for Maria.

Robert Gilmore, Lincoln High’s principal, at the time, vetoed the move.

It was district policy students had to pay for their own cap and gown.

The principal was only following the rules.

The next move  was clear. I was going to give Maria the money out of my own pocket if no else would. I had the luxury of having a job while in high school.

My mistake was telling the principal I was going to do that.

 In retrospect, it was a stupid move.

That meant the principal had clear knowledge that the rule was being circumvented.  And since, unbeknownst to me, he had run the issue up the ladder to District Superintendent Orrin Hoffman who flatly rejected the idea that anyone but a student pay for the cap and gown, I had inadvertently boxed the principal into a corner.

It was not out of the realm of possibility that defying a direct order  from the superintendent could have put the principal’s job in jeopardy, or at least made it more difficult.

Had the money been raised for Maria without bringing it to the attention of the senior class and therefore the principal, what transpired next likely wouldn’t have happened.

At the same time, I was blissfully ignorant of apparent leverage that I had.

I didn’t think for a second to use my “job” I had been at for over two years covering high school sports and Lincoln City Council meetings as a correspondent for the local weekly News Messenger.

The weekly was owned by the woman who also published the daily Press-Tribune in Roseville who also during my senior year hired me on an hourly basis to cover Rocklin City Council and Planning Commission meeting.

And not to make myself to sound a bit pious, but in doing so it would have been crossing an ethical line.

There was an added hammer was that I was unaware of. I was going to be honored as outstanding senior boy at graduation.

What I did next after being told no one else could pay for Maria’s cap and gown, was inform the senior class advisor, Virginia Garrett, that I wasn’t attending the ceremony.

My intent wasn’t to set off a firestorm.

Instead, I no longer wanted to participate in a ceremony that now meant nothing to me if someone whose family looked upon their daughter, granddaughter, sister and niece being the first in their family to earn a high school diploma as a tectonic event couldn’t participate because the family couldn’t afford the cap and gown.

I shared with my mother my decision and why I was doing it. It was clear she didn’t like it, but she supported it. She ended up getting flak from a few choice relatives for weeks after the graduation ceremony.

Apparently, someone at a higher pay grade than Mrs. Garrett had relented.

She shared that it was because the administration didn’t want to risk embarrassing the district assuming not have the outstanding senior boy in attendance who had a fairly high profile in the community for someone who was 18 could create somewhat of a public relations  issue.

However, when I was told the senior class would be allowed to pay for Maria’s cap and gown so she could get her diploma with her classmates while her family looked on, I replied that was fine but I still wasn’t going.

To this day, I regret putting Mrs. Garrett in such a position.

She was by far my favorite teacher. She had believed enough in me to get me to read Beowulf and other challenging classics when I was a freshman. She also — as shocking as this may sound — got me to be the lead in the senior play production of Woody Allen’s “Don’t Drink the Water”.

She saw things in me nobody else did, including myself.

Mrs. Garrett also lived across the alley from us.

Why I didn’t change my mind was simple.

I didn’t want to be a hypocrite.

Over the course of several weeks going back and forth, I voiced more than once that the ceremony meant nothing to me given how a classmate was being treated.

I also thought it would come off as me being a bit of “in your face.”

It’s not that I don’t value graduation ceremonies. I do.

Two of my proudest moments where when I was able to present my sister Mary who is five years younger than me, an 8th grade promotion diploma that I signed as a trustee and four years after that a high school diploma I signed as chair of the school board.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com