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Ashland, Oregon HOME Valley & State Sports Opinion/Editorial Classifieds Business Columnists Obituaries Weather Archive Revels Etcetera Backpage O-Zone Real Estate Guide Menu Guide Shakespeare Subscribe Contact Us Rate Card Place an Ad June 17, 2006 Signs outside an empty Stevenson Union pay mute testimony to the end of another school year. Robert Plain | Daily Tidings All quiet on the eve of commencement Campus clears out as students prepare to ‘walk’ By Robert Plain Ashland Daily Tidings On the eve of Southern Oregon University’s graduation ceremony, the campus is transformed. What was earlier this week a bustling center of collegiate life is now a ghost town. Whereas during the school year there are usually students everywhere, with exams over and graduation looming, the scene at SOU on Friday night was quite different. “It’s gorgeous this time of year,” said Sara Fryburger, a third year senior who will graduate at the end of a busy summer session during which she will take 18 credits in order to graduate a year early. She had the option of participating in the commencement ceremonies Saturday but because her summer classes start Monday, she decided to take a pass. “It’s kind of anticlimactic to walk and then start classes again on Monday,” she said, adding that she just finished her last final exam on Wednesday. She took classes last summer too, and remembered that campus in the summer is not the same place as it is in the winter. “It gets kind of weird walking to classes with no one around,” she recalled. Though there weren’t many other people on campus on Friday night, there were a few stragglers. Katie Stinman, a student from Portland, is going home on Sunday and was on campus Friday night to take one last look for a misplaced cell phone. “It’s kind of lonely,” she said, adding that Fridays tend to be sleepy at SOU. “It’s usually like this on Fridays. I’ve always had classes on Fridays and apparently no one else does.” Though she is looking forward to her time off, she said she’ll tire of it soon enough. “I like the breaks but I get really bored. During the school year there is always something to do.” Jack Montague was riding his bike across campus moving his stuff out of a dormitory and into a rental house above campus. A theater major, he said he just finished his first year at SOU and passed all of his classes, he hopes. “I’m now a sophomore, I hope,” he said. “I should be, hopefully. I cut it pretty close but I think I managed it.” Though he said it can get somewhat boring this time of year he said he also finds the calm to be “relaxing.” Heidi Silva is not an SOU student but frequently cuts through campus to walk her dog Annie on the Talent Irrigation Ditch pathway above campus. “It’s quite different,” she said of the now-empty college campus. “We like it both ways. It’s quieter now, but then again, the students are always friendly. Both ways work for us.” Staff writer Robert Plain can be reached at 482-3456 x. 226 or [email protected] . . Leave a Comment: --> Copyright © 2006 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers. All Rights Reserved.