A referee’s job is a thankless task. Think about it.

Who really wants to get yelled at every day, knowing that every difficult call made in a split second will be challenged by people who may or may not even know the rules. It’s a constant game of amateurs second-guessing professionals, and loudly.

Then, there are the game films — recorded on dozens of family-plan cell phones — that are critiqued post-game.

At least professional referees get a paycheck. There are hundreds of volunteer referees, doing the very best they can to call often-contentious youth league games for nothing more than youngsters’ appreciation.

With such a crying need for referees in Maine, it’s a real shame that so many spectators — often parents attending a game to cheer their child on — feel free to treat game officials so badly.

Fortunately, according to local referees the Sun Journal talked with for a report in Tuesday’s edition, most spectators in the tri-county area are pretty supportive, and the incidents of referee-abuse are rare.

Cheers to that.

And cheers to all the referees who, week after week and season after season, pull on their stripes and do the very best they can. They deserve our thanks, not our anger.

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Lewiston High School seniors accepted their well-earned diplomas Friday night, as did seniors at Dirigo High School and Telstar Regional High School. Today, Edward Little High School seniors, and seniors at Buckfield Junior-Senior High School, Livermore Falls High School and Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School will graduate. More will follow Sunday, and next weekend seniors at Oak Hill High School, Mt. Blue High School and Jay High School will march up aisles in their respective schools to collect diplomas.

High school graduation is a major milestone in the lives of thousands of young Mainers, and they each deserve to celebrate their accomplishments.

Among the thousands, a high percentage will go on to attend college and others will enter the work force. Whatever they decide, for most of these teens, their graduation will push them to the first step of their adult lives. It’s an exciting time, teeming with potential and possibility, and we congratulate these students and wish them well.

Cheers to all.

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Lewiston Superintendent Bill Webster may be the only person alive who has, quite literally, run every foot of every street in the city of Lewiston.

Webster, who is a runner, moved to Lewiston in January and decided that the best way to learn about the city was to run its neighborhoods, one at a time. So, for the past five months he has been running in the very early morning, stepping out of his house at 5:30 a.m. so he can get in a run before heading to his work administering the education of Lewiston’s youth.

Starting in the inner city, the 61-year-old educator worked his way out in circles to the suburbs, running 187 miles in all, charted in a carefully planned layout of city streets.

Along the way, as he ran past the homes of the children in the school district and the businesses where their parents work, Webster learned about this city and its people.

His accomplishment is unique and inspired. We cheer his effort to embrace this city.

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The opinions expressed in this column reflect the views of the ownership and editorial board.