Springfield High School graduation 2017

Commencement exercises 2017 program and speeches.

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Springfield High School graduation 2017 June 13, 2017 SPRINGFIELD, Vt. – Commencement exercises 2017 program and speeches Springfield H.S. Commencement program, Springfield H.S. 2017 Salutatorian Speech by Alex Warner Friends. Family. Teachers. Coaches. Students. And Graduates. It is an honor to be speaking to you all this evening as the President and Salutatorian of the Class of 2017. Parents and teachers give yourselves a pat on the back and thank each other as you are responsible for being successful travel guides in having led us through the adventure of high school. Students, thank your guides. You would not be walking across this stage today without them. But certainly applaud each other and yourselves for pushing through to the end and triumphing through this chapter of your lives. However, my purpose here tonight is to introduce a man who has devoted 35 years of his life to making Springfield High School a better place. Enlightening his English classes with his storytelling, humor, and overwhelming amount of wisdom. Making eye contact with him makes you assume that you are already friends, even if never having met him, because of his teddy bear like persona and constant heart warming smile. Just be careful not to confuse him for our 26th president Theodore Roosevelt. When my fellow class officers and I gave out surveys to get everyone’s vote on the person to fulfill the duty of speaking today, he was instantly the class’s top pick. It’s no secret that many of the students have close relationships with him. Unfortunately for Springfield High School he is retiring this year, causing them to lose not only an amazing educator, but a friend as well. Ladies and gentlemen, please help me in giving a warm welcome to Mr. Ed Wilkins! Commencement Address by Ed Wilkins Greetings school board members, Superintendent McLaughlin, Principal Hathorn, faculty and staff, family and friends, proud parents, and especially to the graduating Seniors in the Springfield High School Class of 2017. Thank you to my forty-first and final senior class for this opportunity to speak today. It is one of the great honors of my teaching life. A “Thank you” card that I received recently said, “Teachers who love teaching, teach children to love learning.” I hope that I have played some small part in helping you to love learning. I understand that some of you claim to have heard me tell stories. Are you ready to hear one more? Start by thinking of your pre-school years when you learned to love stories. What did Mom or Dad, Nana or Pa, do for you at bedtime? They read stories, right? “Moo, Baa, La La La!”; “Corduroy”; “Green Eggs and Ham”; “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad Day”; “Pajama Time”; “Goodnight Moon.” Today’s story features a five-year-old girl or a five-year-old boy – either works – who arrived at the door of a kindergarten room somewhere in Vermont or elsewhere. Either works, because we all arrive at the kindergarten door with wonderful dreams of learning to read the stories for ourselves. Some thirteen years ago, that was you. Excited or anxious, somewhere deep in your heart, you sheltered the dream. It took a while before you could read, but in the meantime, your teacher took you to the library where that nice librarian read you books. You took books home so Mom or Dad could read you stories. They read them so often that you had them by heart, before you could read them yourself. “No, Mom! That’s not right!” and Mom would read the page she had tried to skip, hoping to get you to bed sooner. Then you DID learn to read for yourself! Remember chapter books? You learned about dinosaurs and loved that you could read stories about them. You practiced and practiced until you could read SO WELL. Your teacher said, “You’re such a good reader!” Mom and Dad said, “That’s a great report card! You’re such a good reader!” And then you took the tests that showed what a good reader you had become. But let’s not talk about tests. Let’s move forward to Springfield High School. You walked into that big, brick building, with so many classes and so many heavy books to carry. Some times your teachers chose enjoyable stories to read, but usually they were not as much fun as the ones you would have chosen. More and more, your teachers asked, “What does it mean?” and wanted you to explain the stories. Some times you read them; some times you didn’t, and hoped for the best. Some times your teachers let you write your own stories. That was hard work, but the stories belonged to you. At some point you discovered more than one kind of story. You did science labs and the reports told stories about how the world works? In history classes, you wrote stories of “back in the day,” and of how America grew as one people out of many. In math classes, you wrote to explain how math enumerates the symmetry of life. You wrote about people creating art or music, or dance to explore the esthetics of life. It was SO COOL to discover that life was one story after another, even when they were hard to read. It became easier if you liked the topic, of course. Some of you know the movie character William Forrester who asked his young friend Jamal the revealing question, “Why is it that the words we write for ourselves are always so much better than the words we write for others?” If you were fortunate, you discovered that the best way to write a story was to “Make it your own.” IF YOU WERE VERY FORTUNATE, some teacher said to you, “Come and see.” As NBA coach Doc Rivers said, “A coach’s job is to help you see your dream.” It’s a teacher’s job, too. We want you to see the beauty of your life’s story. That’s why you played sports or the tuba, or acted in plays or sang in the chorus. That’s why you read and wrote the stories, to celebrate life as you saw it. Let’s look at the plot of your high-school story. Some built plans for college or trade school. Some of you will enter the military or you have a job waiting. You played sports and some became champions. Some of you joined a club. We have all-district or all-state musicians among us. You performed, crewed for, or wrote a play. Many of you were selected to an honor society. Some of you worked more than the required minimum community service hours. Oh yeah, you collected enough credits to earn your diploma. When Time magazine selected Viola Davis among the “100 Most Influential People for 2017,” she said to the other honorees at the recognition dinner, “I am proud to be in the same room with all of you who decided to live lives bigger than yourselves.” After today, rarely will anyone ask about your test scores or your grades, or your rank in class. They won’t ask what you HAVE DONE in high school, but what you WILL DO with the rest of your life. One of my favorites, President Theodore Roosevelt valued the man who “spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” You have spent years learning someone else’s truth and developed the tools to prove it. Now it’s time to define your own truth. An anonymous Buddhist monk said, “Your life is a laboratory . . . Test the teachings. . . . . Let your experience inform your life.” I say, build your story of truth as you have discovered it. It may be safe to say that, whether or not Mom and Dad are ready for it, most of you qualify as adults . . . . . . . . on some level. Therefore, you will need to read stories differently from the way you read them in school. The French author Gustave Flaubert urged, “Do not read as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious for the purposes of instruction. No, read in order to live.” David McCullough, Jr., also an English teacher, told graduating Seniors a few years ago: “And read . . .read all the time . . . read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life. Develop and protect a moral sensibility and demonstrate the character to apply it. Dream big. Work hard. Think for yourself. Love everything you love, everyone you love, with all your might.” Since family is a gift that lasts forever, don’t forget hugs and kisses for and from the special people who love you. Celebrate together. Your story at Springfield High School is nearly complete. When you receive your diploma from Ms. Hathorn in a few minutes, you will join the Cosmopolitan alumni family spread around the world. Do your best to become a creative member of that family. So, what happens next? This day marks a graduation – leaving a substantial segment of your life behind. It marks also a commencement – launching a yet larger portion of your life to come. Enjoy this day. Soak up the love and honor that people will show you, but start to think also about what will make you unique. It’s time for you to go into the world outside Springfield High School and prove your specialness. “Live deeply.” “Dare greatly.” “Love mightily.” “Dream boldly.” Now, go and write your own extraordinary story. Class of 2017 Gift Speech by Ericka Schoff Good evening, I am Ericka Schoff and over the last three years, I have held the position of Vice President for the class of 2017. I am proud to represent a class that has spent countless hours serving our community and focusing on the importance of commitment to the common good. We are a class that is known for our integrity and I have no doubts that each one of my peers will continue to spread their light as we enter this new chapter of our lives. If any of you have been in our cafeteria, you may have noticed that the students have access to a microwave at lunch. However, one microwave isn’t sufficient when 10 students need to heat their food and the lunch period is only 30 minutes long. There have been countless times when I’m standing in line wondering how barbaric it would be to eat my burrito frozen. I’m also guilty of sneaking into the staff room and using the well posted, ‘staff only’ microwaves. To prevent further trespassing in the staff room, along with cutting down the cafeteria microwave lines, we will be giving the cafeteria two new microwaves. We have also purchased two microwaves to replace the old ones in the staff rooms. While we hope these gifts remind you that our class not only loves food, AND values the importance of lunch time, we would also like to remind you that we did not have senior prank because we know our presence was a present, and shortly, we will be gone. Thank you! Valedictorian Speech 2017 by Emily Antonivich Good evening friends, family, teachers, and fellow graduates. My name is Emily Antonivich and I’ve been given the privilege to speak about this talented, smart, and passionate group of people here to graduate tonight. In our four years at SHS, we’ve matured and prepared for our next steps in life. We had a lot of fun along the way, but getting here wasn’t always easy. There is little doubt that high school is a challenge for nearly everyone in some way, whether it be a struggle to identify with a social group, a fight to understand algebra, or personal battles that no one else can see. Given this, I would like to emphasize that struggle and success come in many shapes and sizes. We are not all born in the same place, into the same family, with similar household incomes, dynamics, or values. We do not choose how much support we will have in reaching our goals. Some people face more of an uphill battle in this world and face more adversity than others, and their successes may, therefore, look different, but are no less significant. Arnold Schwarzenegger once said, “Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” I want to congratulate each of you on overcoming your own challenges in life to get here. Our different struggles have created a group of people with very different strengths. Among us, we have state champion athletes, dedicated scholars, passionate musicians, gifted artists, and devoted community members. We are headed into the next phase of life on very different tracks, and that is the best part. Beside all the talent and skill I see in this class, I also see a group of people who are ready to go change the world in their own ways, ready to face the next struggle with their unique sets of strengths. Our class is full of people who were dedicated to building a better school community through participation in fundraising, pep rallies, and planning prom. Others got a jumpstart on their career as soon as sophomore or junior year. Some were devoted to a sport (or three, or four), and some preferred to photograph them from the sidelines. We will go on to become nurses, engineers, programmers, firefighters, artists, business owners, scientists, police officers and many other important careers. Our different strengths and goals will take us in many different directions, but Springfield High School will always be a common thread between us. After spending four years learning about who we are as people, our values, and our goals, the way we look at the world now is undoubtedly much different than when we walked through the doors of SHS just four short years ago. Many factors have influenced our better understanding of the realities we face as young adults, but one is certainly our teachers. I have seen teachers take on the role of mentor and friend countless times in my years at SHS and I have watched these connections make an important impact on students’ lives. I want to thank the Springfield High School teachers for their willingness to lift their students up and help us become successful in our own ways. I also want to thank the people who supported us all outside of school: the fans at the sports games, the audience at the concerts, the purchasers of raffle tickets, the people at home who had to live with us during finals season, and those who were willing to just listen to us complain during the stress of junior year. Tonight, let’s celebrate our diverse experiences and attributes before we embark on the next step in our lives. Together, we made it through the painful awkwardness of freshman year, the seemingly endless standardized tests, and the mastery of the CDC paragraph. Now, we will take our own paths and face new challenges, perhaps even bigger than overcoming senioritis. I want to wish you all the best on your new adventures, and encourage you to approach the world with kindness, empathy, and an open mind as we set out to make new friendships and connections. Congratulations, graduates, on such a tremendous achievement. Thank you.