Go on now—just don’t forget us

May 2026

May brings graduations, big dreams and quiet hope they’ll return home because Oklahoma roots have a way of sticking, wherever life leads.

There’s something about May that feels like a deep exhale and a held breath at the same time.

Across Oklahoma, folding chairs line gym floors and football fields. Names are called. Tassels turn. And just like that, a generation steps forward, equal parts ready and not quite ready at all.

As an editor, I get a front-row seat to these moments of becoming. This month, it looks like Trey Myers, Oklahoma’s own National FFA president, whose story carries far beyond the stage. He’s been across the country, even across the world, representing agriculture, leadership and the kind of grounded work ethic that feels distinctly Oklahoman.

We celebrate that. We should. These students are prepared to do big things in big places.

Still, if we’re being honest, there’s always that quiet hope tucked beneath the applause: that one day, they’ll come back. Back to main streets and gravel roads. Back to communities that could use their ideas, their energy and their leadership. Back to the places that first believed in them.

This year, that feeling hits a little closer to home for me.

In our house, graduation looks like a tiny cap and an even tinier diploma. My oldest is graduating Pre-K, which somehow feels both monumental and impossibly small. There’s no long-distance move waiting on the other side — just kindergarten — but even this step feels like a glimpse of what’s ahead. I am realizing quickly the advice I have often been given is true: raising kids is a long process of letting go in small, steady increments.

So here’s your gentle May reminder: call your mom. Or your dad. Or the person who showed up for you in the stands, at the kitchen table or somewhere in between. The ones who packed lunches, offered advice (whether you wanted it or not) and quietly hoped you’d find your way —wherever that might be.

Because if there’s one thing Oklahoma does well, it’s raising people who don’t forget where they came from. Whether they stay, go or eventually circle back home, that part tends to stick. And that’s something worth celebrating