Today's Opinions

In Owensboro this weekend, a group of girls from Shelby County High School will make a bid to be the best among the state’s softball teams.

They begin on Friday morning against top-ranked Christian County on a journey of hope and desire against 15 teams from around Kentucky.

Several of these young women are seniors playing for the final time. Some will go on to play in college. Others will give up the sport.

Shelby County High School, Cornerstone Academy and Corpus Christi High School are about to graduate their latest senior classes, which are always days of great celebrations for teachers, parents and, particularly, the students.

But this year we challenge the entire community to celebrate graduation day.

In the midst of economic issues, with factories closing and futures uncertain, we must remember that the most important and incomparable commodity of Shelby County is the young people we deliver to the real world each year.

Shelby County’s animal shelters are now touting themselves as the first in the state to earn the status of no-kill.

That means that at least 90 percent of the animals they take in are preserved, and that seems a lofty level of success, given that hundreds of homeless creatures are collected each year.

And many of you deserve to share in that accomplishment.

We know it’s cool to have a hot breed of dog purchased directly from a breeder, but isn’t there something more enduring in finding an animal that is in need of a home and giving it one?