Across our community students don caps and gowns, offer up hugs and kisses to one another and prepare to walk into a new life — as high school graduates.

Our area is deep in the graduation season with several schools having already had commencement ceremonies and several more scheduled in the days ahead.

As our community sends off our best and brightest to start careers or to further their educations, the grown-ups in the audience need to ask one question: What am I doing to help encourage those students to return home one day?

Our area’s population is declining and has been for a number of years, in part because economic opportunities here for bright, young people have been more difficult to come by.

Exceptions are out there, evident by a few successful young entrepreneurs in our midst. But for the most part the conventional wisdom is that for someone to make a success of themselves, they must leave our area to do so.

That’s a sad, grim statement on our community, but one that could be changed over time, if we all focused on the problem at hand.

Become involved in Natchez Now and Natchez Inc., both groups fundamental in working to increase business and industry here.

Spend as much money as possible locally, which in a roundabout way helps economic recruiting efforts too, through taxes generated.

We also must focus on making the community better, more appealing to young people just starting their careers as well.

Let’s rip down the “certified retirement community” signs that welcome travelers from our north and south and tout instead our area’s great diversity and talents.

With any luck the graduates of today could return soon to become our community leaders of tomorrow.