Did valley congressmen really boycott the very first UC Merced graduation ceremony?

This week's most dubious absence award goes to California's Central Valley congressional delegation, which somehow managed to find other things to do Saturday, as UC Merced's first graduating class accepted the sheepskin.

Most troubling was the absence of Rep. Devin Nunes of Visalia, one of the driving forces in the school's birth. Why? Because the commencement featured first lady Michelle Obama. At least Nunes came right out and said so: He skipped because of his unhappiness with the Obama administration.

How silly. This was an historic event for the San Joaquin Valley. It was supposed to be about the graduates, a pioneering class that took a chance on a new, unproven institution. It should have been about Merced, a town that finally reaped some economic reward after years of uncertainty and struggle over this university.

Nunes and his valley colleagues (including Bakersfield's Kevin McCarthy, who instead attended an art competition and the birthday party for Dewar's candy shop) might have used the occasion to illuminate some of the valley's specific concerns, including water, but they missed the chance.

"It's bad manners, it's bad form and it's an insult to the community," CSU Stanislaus political science professor Lawrence Giventer told the Merced Sun-Star. I agree.

The party went on without them. Hotels were packed throughout Merced, sending people north to Turlock and south to Chowchilla. Merced was expecting a huge take in tourism dollars, but you can't put a dollar sign on all that community pride.

Too bad the valley's congressmen didn't deem the occasion worth their time. It was a landmark day.

UPDATE: It bears mention that, although he has been supportive of UC Merced, to the point of fighting to prevent an interruption in funding, McCarthy's district is the farthest geographically from the campus among the valley's members of congress. My point is that it would have been nice to see the valley's entire congressional delegation on hand, not only to celebrate the completion of a hard-won fight for higher education in the valley and to honor these pioneering grads, but because these congressmen themselves deserved a public handshake. I hope they didn't really think it was more important to snub Michelle Obama.