High school graduation is a milestone to be celebrated with enthusiasm, certainly, but that enthusiasm must come with appropriate limits.

Those limits were exceeded by the Rapid City Stevens High School class of 2008 at its graduation on June 1, where Silly String, beachballs and airhorns took center stage over diplomas, and diminished the dignity of the ceremony as a result.

We were embarrassed for the school by the rudeness displayed by many students who started their post-graduation party behavior long before school officials were finished conferring diplomas. As the first graduates filed across the stage to receive their diplomas, the pranks and antics that are usually reserved for the final stages of the event began and continued, largely unabated, throughout the ceremony.

That behavior cheapened the ceremony for those audience members who came to honor the accomplishments of their graduating seniors. Graduation ceremonies, after all, are at least as much for the proud parents, family members and friends as they are for the graduates themselves. Those people who loved and supported students from kindergarten through high school should have the right to hear their names announced without the blare of another family's airhorn ringing in their ears. They should be able to see them walk across the stage without dodging a barrage of beach balls.

We were appalled by the failure of Stevens administrators to establish some control over the class. Neither did they ask a reasonable level of decorum from the crowd of overly enthusiastic wellwishers. School officials took too long to acknowledge the mischief and were ineffectual when they did.

We suspect much of the rudeness of the Stevens' ceremony could have been averted with a simple lesson from Principal Mike Talley's graduation rulebook at Central High School, where the 2008 graduation ceremony was both celebratory and appropriate.

Talley sends the message, early and often, that graduation should be a "class act."

"I tell them I trust them to represent themselves, their families and their school well, and I leave it at that," Talley said. "I really don't threaten or warn. I send the message … that we trust and believe in our kids. And they were fantastic."

That's an educational lesson we hope they teach at Stevens High School next year.