PRESQUE ISLE ? Northern Maine Community College graduates received a dose of both reality and hope during their weekend commencement exercises when J. Nicholas Bayne, president and CEO of Maine and Maritimes Corp., gave the commencement address.

“You must not go … into the world without knowing what you are doing with your life,” Bayne cautioned the graduates.

“We need people that can envision a world of tomorrow that is greater than the world of today,” he said.

Bayne, who has headed up Maine and Maritimes Corp., known more commonly as Maine Public Service Co., since March 2002, spoke before a crowd of several hundred people who packed the college’s gym for the graduation. NMCC official conferred degrees on 221 graduates during the Saturday morning ceremony.

Bayne ? a community college graduate himself before he undertook undergraduate and graduate studies in South Carolina ? told the Class of 2005 that the realities which were part of his world when he received his associate degree three decades ago are far different from the ones which graduates face today.

Pointing to terrorism, global warming, the burgeoning debt of top industrialized nations, the increase in world population and the rapid consumption of the world’s resources, Bayne said Aroostook County graduates are stepping out into a far different world and will confront far weightier challenges because of it.

He added that local graduates should not assume that the issues have little or no impact on their lives. As an example of larger issues hitting the rural area, Bayne cited the U.S. Department of Defense’s recent recommendation to close the Defense Finance and Accounting Service site at Limestone.

Bayne urged graduates to look at their commencement not as a stopping point on their educational journey, but as a jumping-off point to face the larger issues and help “meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the needs of the future generation.”

Comparing the graduates’ future to a story he once heard, Bayne told of a boy who placed a sparrow in one of his hands and then asked a wise, old man, “Is the sparrow alive or dead?”

“The old man,” Bayne said, “told the boy, ‘The answer to that question lies in your hands.'”

After Bayne’s address, NMCC President Timothy D. Crowley conferred 98 associate in applied science degrees, 36 associate in science degrees, nine associate in art degrees, 33 diplomas and 54 certificates.

During the event, Crowley also presented the President’s Award to Bert Branscom, general manager of the college’s food service for the past 14 years. The award is given annually to an individual on campus who has made an outstanding contribution to the college.

Branscom, a Caribou native, graduated in 1985 from Northern Maine Vocational Technical Institute with a degree in business administration. He also received a degree in hotel-motel-restaurant management and later graduated as a dietetic technician from Southern Maine Vocational Technical Institute.

Graduates also heard an address from fellow student Scott Birtz, who was selected by the student body to speak during the event.

“As you leave here today, armed with the knowledge of your chosen field, remember, the education you received here is only a small part of what awaits you,” Birtz said. “Go out there and make your mark on the world.”