Good morning.
While we’re still in an introductory state of mind, there’s someone else I’d like to introduce to you, too. Equally as deserving of honor as those of us on stage today, she has been a model of perseverance, of grace, and of academic integrity for as long as I have known her. Let us take a moment to recognize our Salutatorian, Karon Cheney.
[applause]
As valedictorian, I am here behind this podium to say goodbye; that’s what valedictorian means: goodbye-speaker. I have been delegated to give a last farewell to these thirteen years of our lives that are now completed. Now—as of today—high school is over for us, for our Class of 2001, having had many LARGE days…. We entered this hall as one very large class, LARGE in reputation but with an even larger challenge ahead of us: to live and lead where so far we have only followed.
Unlike many smaller high schools across the country, we were not one mass unit all alike in customs, manners, preferences, and dress, but rather individual members of many smaller groups, each with our own memories, our own accomplishments, our own experiences. When we leave this hall, we leave behind our prior judgments and begin with a clean slate.
We leave behind many things here: our preconceptions of the world, our fears, our childhood. Just as the snake sheds it skin, discarding a seeming of what it once was so that it may grow into a LARGER, more ideal snake, so too do we now leave behind some facets of our lives in order to grow into fuller versions of our true selves. Whether this process occurs from college, from a job in the community, or from some other avenue is less important than that we make use of this turning point in our lives to be more than we currently are, to take what opportunities arise.
That is to say that we now have the opportunity to confirm or change previous decisions, to adhere steadfast to ways tried and true or to strike out toward new horizons. In the words of Alexander Evangeli Xenopouloudakis:
“Things never were ‘the way they used to be.’
Things never will be ‘the way it’s going to be some day.’
Things are always just the way they are for the time being.
And the time being is always in motion."
THERE IS NO PAST BUT IN THE MEMORY: remember where you have been, for that defines who you are. THERE IS NO FUTURE BUT IN THE IMAGINATION: imagine where you will go, for so do you recreate your self. THERE IS NO PRESENT BUT IN THE WORDS OF OTHERS: listen to what others have to say, for therein are you reflected. ALL THERE TRULY IS FOR US IS NOW: Now is the time for new judgments, new deeds, new dreams, new lives. Now is the time for us to shape our futures, to clear a path toward new experiences, new accomplishments, new memories.
"Tü në cëdè màlïs, sëd cöntr äüdëntìòr ïtö
Quä tùà të förtünà sìnët."
Yield not to evil things, but rather continue to go more boldly where your fortune will allow you.
Hail, Class of 2001… … …and Farewell, graduates.
Vadite in pacem.
Go in peace.
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Background by Morion.