Salutatorian: Leaving a GHS Legacy for All to Remember

Hey guys.
Even though I had a whole week to prepare for this, I had the
hardest time writing a speech that would somehow say everything in
less than five minutes. Mr. Maxwell gave me only three.
Hey guys.

Even though I had a whole week to prepare for this, I had the hardest time writing a speech that would somehow say everything in less than five minutes. Mr. Maxwell gave me only three.

As your salutatorian expected of giving the funniest speech ever conceived on the face of the Earth, I grew suspicious that David would outdo any of my comical remarks, but I’m afraid that I will have to forgo Mr. Chisholm’s suggestion to wing the entire thing. 

So now I begin by asking for forgiveness for sounding like a Chinese grandfather pulling proverbs out of his posterior when I compare this class to water. Water, as Mr. Gray once informed us while introducing archetypal images, symbolizes all that is pure, renewed, clean, and alive. However, we’re all seniors here, at least for the next hour, so we must ask ourselves what Ms. Elliott would have asked us: How does this contribute to meaning? Well, I’ll tell you how in a nerdy, yet poetical way.

Now chemically speaking, water is comprised of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. We all know that water has a gas state, a liquid state, and a solid state. As a liquid, water distinguishes itself with the hydrogen bonds that hold its vibrating molecules together. As a class, you seniors are no different. From this year alone, you have together demonstrated the spirit, commitment, motivation, and will it takes to reach this monumental milestone in your lives. 

You have actually created quite the paradox in which you have expended so much vigor while attached to others through metaphorical bonds. However, these bonds do no allude to confinement, but to the multitude of relationships that have been forged among us all. Through our pains and joys together, we have not only learned to keep old friends, but to make new ones. Our senior float serves as the epitome of such a fortune.

All twenty-five of our seasonal sports, including the marching band and color guards, have served as the breeding fields for friendships and teamwork, two essential qualities that will only propel us towards glorious success. We have united under the tragic deaths of Erin Kinkel and Monique Llanos in realization that life, no matter who we are, may never be taken for granted. Like rain that eventually trickles together to form formidable rivers moving an unfathomable mass of Earth, you have learned to work with each other as schoolmates, as team mates, and as friends to pursue outstanding goals beyond the reach of the individual.

Little do you know that as you graduate from this guarded campus, you will leave behind you a legacy that future classes will truly respect and admire. So many undergraduates have told me how much they will miss us, some have even cried and if this is true, then we are already well on our way to making changes in this world for the better good.

We have left our impression here, as the Colorado River has carved its way through the Arizona deserts to form the Grand Canyon. Yet, we all know that rivers must inevitably flow to the endless seas of opportunities, possibilities, and of course, girls, at least for us guys. 

Out there in the real world, and mind you that I refer not to the show on MTV, we may be reduced to some insignificant sample of workers, but in the scheme of all things, we are joining other great minds ready to support and stabilize a world that goes much beyond “Desperate Housewives” or even “American Idol.” We are about to enter a world whose peace and existence remains threatened by ignorance, greed, conquest, and corruption.

Seniors, you have traveled a long but safe path while learning how to exercise endurance, sacrifice, discipline, blah, blah, blah, and all that jazz. As a river finding its way to the sea, you will of course meet and forge past obstacles, a necessary concept that life seems to frequently throw at us. If somehow, you can find a way to avoid the entire dilemma, tell Mr. Kuwada: you guys will make lots of money.

Thus, as you conclude your career as Gilroy High School students, so will I conclude this otherwise mushy speech. Seniors, never have I been so honored to learn and to laugh with such a group that now sits fittingly on this perfect field waiting for the bittersweet end.

While I wish you to remember your association with the Mustang, I hope that you will embrace your role as the element of water. So, it is here and now when I finally say, Class of 2006, you have already proven to us, here in Gilroy, that you can accomplish extraordinary deeds. Now prove it to the world.