by Bennett Hreherchuk & Alex Donaghy
Valedictorians, Cody Class of 2013
We are here to celebrate the end of a 12-year routine.
One which involved homework and grouchy mornings, canteen lunches featuring taco in a bag and naps during class time. It involved laughing (lots of laughing, specifically 44 times in one class for no apparent reason), dino-sours, bruised shins, Harlem shakes, and “YOLO.”
It also included a few apocalypse scares: Y2K and the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012. Imagine; being scared over too many zeros and not enough stone.
There was also one particularly memorable Borat swimsuit. I am sad to say that I know the exact colour of the one we all have in mind.
During these 12 years, we’ve excelled at sports and the arts, become craftsmen, bakers, citizens, scientists, directors and more. We are about to leave this familiar groove to take part in a world that expects more and gives less.
In this new world, our timing might be off now and then.
There will be no bells to tell us when to move on to our next lesson. When the time is right and what actions to take will be up to us. We may stumble sometimes and things might happen that will have us, on occasion, flying by the seat of our pants. A growling stomach, a stained shirt, an empty gas tank, a brain fart when trying to finish a speech, socks that don’t match or even as Neil Gaiman said: “exploding cats.”.
No matter what, as we go in the direction of our goals, we will pursue excellence because that is who we are. We know that with every step forward the people that raised us, those that taught us and those that cared about us, will continue to be there to give us the courage to carry on.
We can feel pressured to have our future planned in this instant and to be able to explain who, what, when, where and how to anyone who asks. We’re allowed not to know and to change our minds! All the things that we are right now are only fractional bits of the people we will become but we don’t need to be certain today about who we are going to be tomorrow. The human experience for each of us will be unique and memorable.
We would like express our appreciation to parents, teachers, family and friends for the role they have played in our lives and their continued support as we learn all the things the world has yet to teach us. We hope you always remember this as a great conclusion to 12 years of dedication. This graduation signifies a milestone where our paths, that have been joined for so long, are about to diverge.
Thank you, Grad class of 2013, for sharing this part of the journey with us. If it is true that we are the result of all the people we have met, then I think, already, this particular batch of individuals is something special.