Discarded Honor by Laura Moncur from Flickr

I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was a valedictorian medal at Thrift Town. Jessica L. Eriksson graduated valedictorian from Viewmont High School in 2005 and just gave her medal away to a thrift shop. It made my heart ache to see it there.

When I think of how hard I worked to get as far as I did, it makes me sick to see it. Our school was so competitive that a 3.96 GPA wasn’t good enough. Neither was a 4.0. You had to take all the AP courses that were weighted and still we had two people with a GPA over 4.1. Suzanne Clark and Aracelli Rojas were our valedictorians at Kearns High in 1987. I wonder if they got a nice medal this shiny and clean with their names engraved on the back?

Two bucks. That’s what it cost me to buy a valedictorian medal. Is it just easier now? Did Jessica not care about it? Did it somehow get lost with the old clothes and end up at Thrift Town on accident? If it had been me, there would have been no mistakes. That thing would have been framed and mounted on the wall. There would have been no way for me to lose that accolade.

Jessica, I see you won fourth place in the State Finals for the FBLA in Accounting in 2005:

• FBLA STATE CONFERENCE WINNERS 2005: Who’s Who in FBLA

I also noticed you ran the 5K in 27 minutes and 38 seconds in October of 2004.

• 5A JV Girls 5K Results

You finished in 64th place. Is that good? Is that bad? You beat my best 5K time by three minutes. Three minutes and 0.3 GPA points. That’s the difference between a winner and a loser in these little races of human competition, but how fast do I need to run in the race of life?

Jessica, if you want your valedictorian medal back, you can’t have it. I’m pretending it’s mine now.