YAKIMA, Wash. -- Yakima School Board President Vickie Ybarra spoke Thursday night at the Yakima Valley Community College commencement ceremony.
Ybarra, a Democratic candidate for the state House last year, has become one of the more visible political figures in the Yakima Valley. So I was curious about the speech. I called Ybarra today to ask about it. She sent over the full text, which focused on community service and the value of community colleges. Here are a few excerpts:

• “I have a great deal of affection for community colleges, as that’s where I started out my path in higher education. I was born and raised on the other side of the mountains, I went to high school in California, and I did not attend college right out of high school.
I was 25 when I went back to school, and in 1985 when I entered what was then Fort Steilacoom Community College in Tacoma (now Pierce College), I still wasn’t quite sure what field I wanted to pursue. With the help of great advising I had at Fort Steilacoom, I made the decision to complete nursing prerequisites there and transfer into the four-year nursing program at the University of Washington.”

• “We cannot continue to view ourselves as the city we were 20 years ago, and we cannot engage in small-minded thinking. We must, for example, expect that public servants truly serve the public — and if we are to move forward to become the great communities we have the potential to be, we must demand that the ethics and vision of our public servants match our vision of what we know our communities will be.”

• “We are so fortunate to live here, to be in community together.  Yakima and the other communities in the Yakima Valley are truly on the precipice of greatness. But it will take a critical mass of us working together, pulling in the same direction for our communities, to make that happen.”

- Pat Muir