Verdi Restaurant and Bar 410 E Main St. (270) 781-9817 Price Range: About $15 to $25 per entree. Example Entree: chicken and crab scaloppine with sherry for $16. Mariah’s 801 State St. (270) 842-6878 Price Range: About $10 to $20 per entree. Example Entree: filet mignon for $19.

Baymont Inn & Suites 165 Three Springs Road (270) 843-3200 Nightly rates: About $74 to $84 during the week and about $84 to $89 during the weekend. Holiday Inn University Plaza-Bowling Green 1021 Wilkinson Trace (270) 745-0088 Nightly rates: About $119. Courtyard by Marriott Bowling Green Convention Center 1010 Wilkinson Trace (270) 783-8569 Nightly rates: About $109.

Graduation day is close. And students are thinking of ways their families can pick them out of the massive crowd of graduates before they shake President Gary Ransdell’s hand.

Every grad is unique. Graduation caps, or mortarboards, can reflect that easily.

Every spring, whether for giddy kindergartner’s, hormonal eighth-graders, anxious high school seniors or terrified college graduates, sappy songs provide the soundtrack for family celebrations and video yearbooks.

In nine days, Western graduates will flip their tassels and move on to forever.

Sam Evans, dean of the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences While the current job market can be a little scary for graduating seniors, it’s important to have a positive outlook, Evans said. “Know who you are as an individual,” he said. Graduates should keep both their personal and professional goals in mind, Evans said.

Seniors at graduation are at the peak of their educational career. They wait, beaming in all their pride and glory for the hard studying and grueling test-taking they have endured.

They long for the moment their is name called to walk in front of hundreds and receive their diploma-then an ecstatic relative blows an air horn and other students can’t hear their name being announced.

Registrar Freida Eggleton answered some frequently asked questions for graduating seniors. Q: Do students need tickets for their guests at graduation? She said that’s probably the most frequently asked question she gets. The ceremonies are open to the public and there isn’t a restriction on the number of guests who can attend, Eggleton said.

The Herald asked Western graduates to write how they feel as they prepare to leave the Hill for the real world.

The Herald would like to thank: its readers who pick up the paper twice a week and keep up with breaking news on wkuherald.com

These past four years at Western have been a roller coaster of experiences.

There were the bad times, but more importantly, there were the good times that outweigh those low points in my college career. As a soon-to-be graduate of Western, I can look back and see how much I have grown mentally, physically, and most importantly, intellectually.