Congratulations to my oldest daughter, Ashley, who graduated this month from NDSU with a music education degree.  Through the course of her college years, she took a year off to work as Miss North Dakota and competed in the Miss America Pageant 2008, she got married, moved out of state (finishing her last five classes as a distance learner while working for a year as a full-time personal banker), had a baby and did two student teaching placements (one in high school and one in an elementary setting).

During her NDSU years she sang in the Concert Choir, Madrigal Singers, and Bison Arts ensemble and was able to travel to Arizona and Easter Europe with these groups.  She played Maria in West Side Story, Lily in Secret Garden, and finished her NDSU years as the soloist at her December 14 graduation, singing the National Anthem and the school’s song, “The Yellow and the Green.”

It has been a blessing to watch our firstborn be fashioned into the lovely, hard-working, life-loving, life-giving, accomplished person she has become and to watch God teach her and steer her to himself as she stepped through the doorway of adulthood.