It is time to move Vicksburg and Warren Central high schools’ graduations indoors for good.

This week showed that the annual decision to schedule the graduations outdoors in May is playing with fire, or maybe more accurately water. Temperatures this time of year are creeping closer to the 90s making for a warm evening outdoors and rain is a constant worry for any outside event.

While different decisions may have been possible to enable the entire classes at the two high schools to graduate in one ceremony, the Vicksburg Warren School District should be commended for acting quickly early in the week to make changes to the ceremonies based on the forecast.

The late change impacted how well the Vicksburg Convention Center was able to get ready for the ceremony, though. The lack of time and the Margaritaville job fair held earlier this week kept them from putting in the risers that create additional seating, which played a big hand in the ceremonies having to be split in half.

Warren County is lucky to have the VCC in town and the availability of such a large event space should make it a no-brainer decision to move the graduations indoors permanently. There is the tradition of graduating on the football fields, but with the easy accessibility of an event space that can accommodate the ceremonies, the benefit of not having to deal with weather outweighs the arguments for using the football fields.

If the decision is made now, the graduation can go on the schedule reserving the space, the VCC will be able to plan to have the risers in place and the school district can figure out how many tickets each student can received to enable all the graduates to be together in one ceremony. 

After graduation was forced inside due to weather for the second time in four years, it is time to make the move permanent.