I have a confession.

This past weekend I draped my press pass around my neck and attended two high school graduation ceremonies — Tahoma’s and Kentlake’s — not because I felt obligated to do so for the newspaper but because I wanted to see a bunch of kids from both schools graduate.

In other words, attendance was as much about personal relationships as it was about my philosophy about my profession of community journalism.

Even knowing that Tahoma’s commencement ceremony was going to be bittersweet for me it was much more emotional than I had anticipated.

In early 2009 I wrote a story about a girl named Sabrina Roberts and her friend, Jenna Fernandez, and their experience with an MTV show called “MADE.” The cameras followed the girls around for several weeks as they went from preppy, ultra-feminine choir girls to hard core mixed martial artists.

I spent a few hours talking with Roberts and Fernandez in the Starbucks coffee shop at Four Corners.

Imagine my shock when I discovered Roberts died in February 2010, just a year after I had met her, halfway through her junior year of high school.

At Tahoma’s graduation ceremony, there was an empty chair for Roberts, and I couldn’t help but choke up a bit as I imagined her sitting in that chair. She was supposed to be there, in white cap and gown, radiant, dazzling everyone with her beautiful smile.

I always figured she would end up in show business. And I bet she would have performed with the jazz choir, which sang “Blue Skies” during the ceremony.

Instead, there was an empty chair and memories.

Yet, there were many moments I smiled during the ceremony.

During the past three school years I have interviewed a number of these students.

Valedictorian Cort Hammond told me about the Green Team in 2009, which he helped found after he transfered to Tahoma High, and I couldn’t help but laugh when he talked about being known as “the recycling guy” during his speech. Or when he sang snippets of songs by U2 and Pearl Jam.

And all the athletes I’ve interviewed or covered, Katie Buskey, Shelby Carter, Molly Meeks, Morgan Murrey, Lisa Maulden, Emily Miller, Kiley Dunn, Eddie Espinoza, Danny Soltero, Christian Behrens, Courtney Visaya, Saibra Rubadue, Brittani Miller and numerous others who I am forgetting, for that I apologize.

I watched them walk across the stage, meet a fellow graduate in the middle, bump fists, high five, hug, dance, then link arms or grab one another’s hands as they walked down the stairs, graduates ready to write the next chapter of their lives.

I smiled. Frequently and huge. And I was proud.

But, no moment made more proud of Tahoma’s class of 2011 than when Zack Lystedt got up on stage to get his diploma.

Lystedt was injured in a football game in 2006 that altered his life in ways I couldn’t even begin to describe. He suffered a concussion, sat out of the game for a while, then returned and suffered a brain hemorrhage after getting hit hard again while forcing a fumble on the goal line. For the next three months he was in and out of a coma.

This newspaper was barely a year old and a very different publication at the time. I remember following Lystedt’s story closely, especially in the first few months, wondering how it would unfold and what would the outcome eventually be for him.

I also had hoped I would be able to write a story but for a number of reasons that never quite worked out.

Teenagers can be cruel and being a bit jaded, I had always worried that Lystedt’s injury and subsequent struggles may have caused problems for him at school, but I discovered quite the opposite on June 10 at White River Amphitheatre.

As Lystedt stood up from his wheel chair, a hush fell over the crowd, then as he made his way haltingly across the stage the reaction from those in the audience  — particularly the graduating class — was epic.

It began as applause, then swelled to a roar of cheers and a standing ovation from Lystedt’s peers who may well have been more thrilled to see their classmate walk than Lystedt was for himself.

In that moment, I got a little misty eyed and was thankful for the darkness below the stage to hide it, as well as a swell of pride and even a little bit of hope that this group of teenagers would go out into the world and make it a better place.

What’s more is that I believe they can. I do not doubt it.

Lystedt has already made the world a better place, thanks to the law passed in 2009 by the Washington state legislature named for him, which requires athletes under 18 to be pulled from a game or practice if it is suspect they have suffered a concussion and can not return until getting a written authorization from a medical professional trained in the diagnosis and management of concussions.

Similar laws have been passed in 23 other states, principal Terry Duty told the crowd that night, and Lystedt’s experience has informed the rules at the college level as well as the way the rules are enforced in the NFL.

But, it is also likely that Lystedt — who also now has a Tahoma High award that bears his name and will be given out to future seniors who have overcome major obstacles — has inspired his classmates to do great things, greater than they may have otherwise aspired to before.

This was truly a special night. I know many saw it on the local news over the weekend but I promise you, there is nothing I can say, no video that can match that moment.

And I was lucky enough to be right in the middle of it, just a few feet away from the stage, taking photos but also trying to take it all in.

In that moment I decided I was glad I chose to be at this graduation regardless of the reasons I was there because this was a night I won’t soon forget.