Valedictorian Speeches at 2007 Graduation Ceremonies
June 8, 2007 - Graduation is the time when students walk across a stage to be congratulated by their principal and to be presented with a diploma that signifies they have successfully completed four years of high school study. During this recognition of each individuals achievement, time is set aside for several students to express the excitement of the moment, to remember the hard work of their years in school and to look forward to the future. WCPSS valedictorians were invited to submit their comments and several agreed to share what they had to say.
Julie Wofford - Athens Drive High School
She moves her tiny baby closer to the ledge
The mother eagle knows it's time
for him to leave the nest
Then he's free falling
Discovering his wings
As the rocks rise up to meet him
He feels his mother underneath him
Good evening. First of all, thank you. Thank you to the faculty,
administrators and teachers who have cared about each of us. Thank you to our guests seated on the platform who have taken time to recognize our accomplishment. Perhaps the biggest thank-you goes to parents and family who have nudged us to the edge, just like the words from the song I started with, written by Kyle Matthews.
Class of 2007… thanks to all of you for just being who you are. Today is our day! We’ve had four years of days together. Four years ago we entered Athens scared, full of anticipation, yet excited. Four minutes from now, I’ll be thrilled this speech is over… of course, you may be even more thrilled. It hardly seems fair; I worked hard for 4 years… I’m rewarded with another essay to write. You worked hard for 4 years… you have to endure this speech. I guess we’ve all learned that life isn’t always fair. But one thing’s sure: In four minutes, or maybe an hour, or maybe a summer, we’ll join the baby eagle in leaving the nest.
Is it time to be scared again? I think fear may be in order. Unlike President Roosevelt, I don’t think the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. We all have our list of fears. For example, I think that many of us were raised to win… and that puts a major burden on us: We’re afraid to lose… we’re afraid to fail.
So on this day while we celebrate our accomplishment, let’s think about some classic failures.
Thomas Edison may be the poster boy for failure. He was a firm believer in its importance. Failure was what led him to success. Once, while he was working to develop a better battery, a discouraged assistant came up to him and suggested that Edison must be ready to quit after having performed some 50,000 tests without success. "You must be pretty downhearted with the lack of progress", the assistant said. Edison replied, "Downhearted? We've made a lot of progress. At least we know 50,000 things that won't work!"
We also know it took him more than 2,000 tests to find the right filament for the light bulb.
On the other hand, Edison also tried to make furniture from concrete.
How about Ty Cobb? He holds the best major league batting average of all time… yet two-thirds of the time when he came up to bat, he failed to get on base.
Al Gore?…failed to get elected. Then he dived into documentaries and received an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth.
Remember the baby eagle?
Sometimes you have to fall
To find out who you are
Don't be afraid to fail
Because you learn each time you try
Sometimes you have to fall to fly
So does this mean we should recklessly attack the rest of our lives with no fear of failure?
Well, some failures hurt more than others. We still haven’t found Amelia Earhart. The failed re-entry of the Columbia shuttle still haunts our nation and those who lost loved ones.
So some failure, it seems, should indeed command fear. Not only that, even Edison’s plan for “success through failure” is somewhat questionable.
While Edison was quoted as saying, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration,” Nicola Tesla, a pioneer in electricity & magnetism and a contemporary of Edison, commented, “His method was inefficient in the extreme… I was sorry [for him], knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90% of the labor.”
So our biggest challenge may not be to achieve great things, but to gain the wisdom to be able to balance failure with caution and forethought. If it weren’t a big challenge, I could just tell you how to do it… but I definitely don’t know how to do that. We are each going to have to find our own way to handle failure.
One final word to the class of 2007 and to those who supported us on the way:
A lesser love would always hold us
and try to keep us safe
But God knows when
the time is right
to take His hands away
Sometimes you have to fall
To find out who you are
Don't be afraid to fail
Because you learn each time you try
Sometimes you have to fall to fly
Sometimes you have to fall to fly
Catherine Nancy Hughes - Fuquay Varina High School
Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings’ end. As we set out to start the rest of our lives, we look back on our years here. It’s been a tough but rewarding journey we’ve made to get here today. We’ve accomplished things we never thought possible, made friendships that will last a lifetime, broken boundaries, and pushed ourselves to the limit. We have also had classes we’ve loved, classes we’ve hated, days we wish would never end, days we wish had never begun, gained the reputation of the most spirited class, had two football conference championships, won Powder Puff three years in a row, and made our way through four different principals, one we never even met. We’ve loved, laughed, cried; we’ve lived life. All of these things have shaped the people we are today.
As you are all on the brink of finally having that high school diploma, after twelve very long years of education, realize that this is just beginning. The future is open to all of us. When we leave this room, we will be faced with countless decisions, from what our lunch plans are to what we want to do with our lives. We are the future leaders, teachers, store owners, CEO’s, mothers, fathers and so much more. We are the future.
As cliché as this may sound, we can make a difference. We are all capable, unique, amazing individuals. Find your passion. Live life. Leave an impact on this world and don’t ever give up on your dreams. As a friend once told me, a failure only fails once but a successful person will fail many times. Take risks. With each new day, opportunities will present themselves. Be happy with who you are today- but never stop imagining who you could be tomorrow. Also remember to always enjoy the journey.
Take time out to laugh, smile, and relax. Life does not revolve around how many awards you have won or what your salary is. Life is so much more. Love, and be loved. Laugh always. Spend time with those you love. Show others how much they mean to you, thank them. Thank your family and all who have helped to get you to where you are today.To my own family and friends, I could never have succeeded without your unconditional love and support.
To our staff and our wonderful principal, thank you for all the dedication and time you have given us. Thank you for your passion in teaching and guiding all of us.
Over the past four years, we have matured into young men and women with a passion for our future. We are young adults ready to take on the world, with, of course, help from those who care for us. We are driven, passionate, and determined. We are accomplished high school graduates. We are the Class of 2007. Congratulations everyone. Good luck and God bless.
Paige Griffin, Knightdale High School
To my fellow classmates. We’ve made it. After three years of paving our own paths, creating our own traditions, and setting the bar for senior classes that follow, we’re finally done. We are graduating. We have made history. We are the first graduating class of Knightdale High School – the Class of 2007. Congratulations to each of you for achieving excellence in academics, arts, and athletics but also congratulations to our teachers, administrators, coaches, friends, family, and parents. We share our success with you for you have given us the freedom to dream and the courage to reach beyond our comfort zone.
Graduations are often described as a door closing on the past behind us, our past being shut in a closet, only to be reopened in reminiscent moments that are few and far between. The way I look at it, a graduation is a ceremony that celebrates a series of gradual changes, a ceremony that pushes us into a hallway lined with thousands of doors, entryways to another phase of our gradual change.
Today we stand before these doors, each different from the others, each holding opportunities for each of us. We must try at these doors, opening them to look at what lies within. Passing through some doors, we will have to set aside fear and prejudice before we may advance. To unlock others, we will have to uphold our sense of justice and dignity. If a door suddenly shuts before us, we cannot be discouraged, but instead we must look for the sudden opening of another. It is finally time to leave home and the halls of Knightdale High, and enter into the real world, college, and jobs. It is now up to us whether we charge through any barriers we encounter in a relentless pursuit of a dream or if we will aimlessly walk the road of life and turn around whenever struggles come our way.
As we walk out of this auditorium as high school graduates, our paths are still unpaved, and our future still undiscovered. We face hardships and let downs, but also a life full of wonderfully unexpected moments and glorious successes. It’s now up to us. We are the beholders of tomorrow, and we determine the future. Good or bad, it's ours.
Let us embrace the future with open arms. We are armed with the education, the friends and family, and the ambition to materialize our dreams.
I’d like to end with something from Dr. Seuss.
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
Any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers
Who soar to high heights.
You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed.
You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Today is your day.
Your mountain is waiting.
So….get on your way.
Akul Shailesh Patel, Wakefield High School
Good Evening Class of 2007. Before I start, I’d like to say something on behalf of everyone graduating today. Parents, siblings, friends, and the teachers and staff of Wakefield High School – thank you for putting up with us over the years. Thank you for helping us even when we didn’t show our appreciation. Most importantly, thank you for giving us the opportunity to be here today.
Making a graduation speech, I am supposed to say something meaningful. I was thinking about reflecting on the wonderful years we have spent together at Wakefield by cracking a few inside jokes; then, I thought about trying to give you a profound way to become a millionaire. Or, better still, I could drop a beat and free style for a couple minutes. Instead, I want to say something that will probably surprise most of the people sitting in this arena.
Your valedictorian, yes the handsome brown man speaking to you right now, once almost failed out of school. I was, quite literally, on my very last leg. You’re probably wondering how such a hard working student could fall so short. Actually, you’re probably saying, “Wow, this kid really is like me after all.” Well, at the time, the reasons were very simple - I just didn’t care that much. I had my friends and my popularity. Every night, I could go out, meet new people, and forget about school. I mean, what more could I ever need? Although, looking back, flunking would not have been such a good idea; I can honestly say that those years in England were the best of my life. The truth is, after I came to America in the middle of high school, and realized it was nothing like movies, I hit a wall. I froze socially. What was the point if I didn’t know anyone? What was the point if everything I had ever accepted suddenly just vanished? If meeting new people just meant forgetting them, I didn’t see a need to start my life over. So, putting it simply, I quit. I became, what most of you would call a “loser” for the simple fact that I didn’t have any social connections.
Recently, I came to realize everything I had forgotten as I decided to forget my social life. Although I can honestly say that I am in a fortunate position right now, I realize everything I have missed, and, although I do regret not putting in the effort before, I also regret not making enough of an effort to make new friends.
Now, I’d like to tell you a story about a man named Michael. Michael is just an ordinary working guy with a wife and two kids. The only difference is Michael is what I would call a workaholic. Every evening, Michael would work until 11 or 12 and every morning he would start work at 6. Eventually, he fell to the stress that he imposed on himself. He had a heart attack. Michael was lucky enough to survive. However, he never again looked at life in the same way. He realized all the valuable time he had been missing with his family.
OK, OK, I just completely made that up. But my point is that life is not always about working and working. Sometimes, by putting ourselves under too much pressure, we forget the important aspects of life. Of course I’m not telling you to go and flunk out and party the next few years away, and I’m certainly not telling you to be slackers, but I am telling you to not get so bogged down in work that you forget what it means to have fun. Most of us are about to undergo the greatest change of our lives. Know that change is not something to run away from, to hide from like I did. It is, instead, something to embrace. Basically, my message to you is, learn from my stupidity!
Abraham Lincoln once said, “And in the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.” Just think about how true that is. It is the life in your years. In the end, when we look back, we will not see a straight line to our childhood. Instead, we will see a collection of staggered memories that define our journey. Make these memories a thrilling reflection. If we are forever ‘doing that project’, or ‘working some extra hours for pocket money,’ we will have no memories. Life is either an unforgettable adventure or it is nothing. Whether we are going off to college, entering the work force, or simply sitting out to see what happens, let’s make the best out of these next few years. In the words of our good friend, “There is more to life than making straight A’s.”
To summarize, don’t flunk out of school and certainly don’t work so hard that you forget to live – find the balance. And finally, it is my pleasure to graduate with Wakefield High School’s class of 2007. Congratulations, good luck, and thank you for your time.
-wcpss-
Updated June 18, 2007 with additional speeches.