With more than $33 million of new construction coming to fruition this summer, Kenai Peninsula College will being going all out to celebrate opening the college’s first residence hall and new, state-of-the-art Career and Technical Education Center.

The public is invited to mark the calendar for Aug. 15 to enjoy the festivities that will include ribbon cuttings and tours of facilities, a free barbecue, live music and general celebration of the historic occasion.

Last week I told my parents I would miss school the next day to go paint a golf cart. They believed me. The next day when I got home from the art field trip, we were laughing about how that’s not something parents hear every day. We also talked about trust. My parents trust me because I’ve built up a reputation of telling them the truth and following through on what I say I’ll do. I admit, a lot of times I’ll forget to clean my room, but I get around to it. When I say, “I’ll make sure my room is clean before I have friends over,” it happens.

School board to meet

The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District Board of Education meets at 7 p.m. in Assembly Chambers in the borough building, at 148 N. Binkley Street in Soldotna (unless otherwise noted).

For more information, call 714-8888 or visit http://www. kpbsd.k12.ak.us/school_board.aspx?id=13414. The agenda and packet items are posted on Wednesday afternoon prior to the date of the Board meeting.

The Kenai River Campus graduation ceremony will take place at 7 p.m. on Thursday at Kenai Central High School’s Renée C. Henderson Auditorium. The key note speaker this year is author Dana Stabenow.

KRC chooses valedictorians from the two major academic divisions at the college, Arts and Sciences and Business and Industry. This year the AS designee is Danna Spring, who is graduating with a 4.0 GPA and being awarded an associate of arts degree, and the BI designee is Lori Lehigh, also with a 4.0 GPA and earning her associate of applied science in general business.