MSU Billings Graduation

Saturday we were invited to our student/friend Arthur's college graduation. He graduated with honors and now has an AS degree in Fire Science.

The graduation was held at the Metra in Billings, this is the first graduation since the tornado last year. We were excited to see the "new" Metra.

The graduation ceremony started at 10:00 and we got there about 9:45, we were directed to park in the upper parking lot. They had attendants directing traffic. Found a place to park and made our way down into the Metra. The steps and tunnel are not completed yet, so we had to wind our way down the hill.

We were very disappointed in the "new" Metra. As far as we could tell, nothing new about it, just repaired things. The seats are the same seats as before. The ones that were damaged in the storm were just recovered. They did add cup holders on the seats, but they are still on the ground. No extra leg room. No changes in the restrooms either. The paper kept stating that there are more restrooms and they are bigger. Nothing just new fixtures.

We stayed long enough for some of the speeches, but as soon as Arthur received his diploma we left. There were 900 students graduating, but not all of them showed up. There were quite a few empty seats in the graduate section. Wanted to leave before all the chaos of traffic trying to get out of the parking lots. Besides we received a text from Arthur telling us to do so.

We made our way to the west end of town for the BBQ at his sister's house. We found the house without any problems, in fact we were a bit early. There were about 15 people there and we were served steaks, several different salads, fruit and of course cake. It was all very delicious. We actually knew some of the people there and got in some visiting. The weather held out for the BBQ, it didn't rain until later in the night.

Arthur's mother flew in from California so we got to visit with her a bit. Poor woman was freezing in Montana. She lives in Palm Springs and it was 91 degrees at her home. She couldn't believe that on Friday morning there was snow. She was wearing heavy sweaters and such while we were wearing just light clothes.

We got Arthur a wallet on a chain. A couple weeks ago he took a motorcycle trip to Missouri and somewhere along the way lost his wallet with all of his money and ID.

It was a nice get together, Jennifer went with us. She and Arthur are good friends and she really wanted to go to his graduation.