Commencement firing

by Denny Banister

I was not invited to University of Arizona commencement ceremonies this year, so I cannot report as to whether or not graduating students honored the University President’s plea they not throw tortillas at the event. That’s right, tortillas.

We have all seen television news coverage of military academy commencement ceremonies where the graduating cadets throw their combination covers (military jargon for hats with bills) into the air once they are officially no longer cadets and are now officers in the U.S. military.

Many secondary and college graduates imitate the tradition of the military academy cadets by throwing mortarboards, those funny looking skullcaps with the square top and a tassel, into the air at their commencement’s conclusion. Commencement’s conclusion – that sounds funny, doesn’t it? Commencement’s conclusion means the beginning’s end. Only a journalist can be so easily entertained. But, I digress.

I attended my nephew’s high school graduation a couple of weeks ago, and noticed he was smart enough to remove his tassel before sailing his mortarboard through the air. Few graduates want to keep the silly looking mortarboard, but they do want to keep their tassel, or else they would have nothing to hang from their car’s rearview mirror.

Getting back to the University of Arizona, some years ago graduates began tossing tortillas into the air instead of mortarboards, a tradition the University would like to see put on a permanent siesta. University President Peter Likins expressed the flying tortilla tradition as a waste of food and an action that is culturally offensive to some people.

I presume President Likins feels the many Mexican Americans in Arizona’s population would be offended, but I doubt that – this is not about making fun, but rather having fun. Personally, I feel President Likins was more concerned with the impression tortilla tossing made on the important commencement speakers invited to the occasion. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was greeted with flying tortillas during her address in 1999. “It’s a little unusual,” she said, “but it does keep you alert.”

This year, the University placed food bank boxes at the doors to encourage students to give up their tortillas. We in agriculture would like to see food bank boxes filled without discontinuing the tortilla tossing tradition. In fact, we would be thrilled if the unusual tradition expanded nationwide.

Tortillas are made of corn flour, and tortilla consumption means purchasing more corn from farmers. Perhaps we could convince graduates to also turn slices of bread into celebrative Frisbees, improving demand for wheat, and toss some tofu to improve soybean demand.

In fact, perhaps we should encourage graduates nationwide to have an all out food fight after receiving their diplomas. They would get a lot of satisfaction by doing something they always wanted to do while in school, but did not for fear of being expelled. As the food soars, prices paid to farmers soar. Commencement firing.

(Denny Banister, of Jefferson City, Mo., is the assistant director of public affairs for the Missouri Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization.)