who will lead us in the singing of or are the words to the autumn home water can be found at the end of your program gentlemen please remove your hat welcome to the two thousand and nine of high school graduation commencement ceremonies this is the culmination of many years of hard work planning and i'm sure a tremendous labor of love between parents and these wonderful pretty graduates seated before us it's a great honor for me to be here today being part of this special  way the other two principals please stand high school faculty and let's give them a round of applause next we have visiting with us today those fine faculty members from our middle and elementary schools who planted the seeds of learning for our children would the elementary and middle school  teachers please stand and be recognized also very proud to have a have with us today administrators from the elementary schools the middle school and the central office with those administrative leaders from our district schools in the central office please stand to be recognized the ceremony would not be possible without the diligence and caring touches of several people that just have to be mentioned the secretaries mrs borg missis worst mrs glass mrs peeler mrs fetzer and mrs murdoch have a job to make this a special time for our children to as they graduate today needless to say if you look around there is a lot that has to be done to pull this off and the entire custody and maintenance staff at the high school in the district deserve an exceptional round of applause finally and most importantly i would like to recognize a group of individuals who make it all happen their tireless and at times underestimated dedication is often lost in the emotions of the moment ladies and gentlemen and pretty graduates it's with extreme pride that i introduce to you the board of school directors please hold your applause until all are standing mr david business president sullivan dr john steffensen these people make it happen they make it so that we can do our jobs and offer the greatest educational programs for our children so they can go off and be better than they were when they left i can't say enough about this group please give them a warm round of appl are now about to be entertained with for just exceptional speakers the president the class of two thousand and nine andrew fitzgerald williams will be followed by the president of student council katherine rose rhone and finally given valedictorian addresses a memory trot nick and andrew denis handlin you in for a great experience welcome parents staff graduates and honored guests in nine hundred fifty nine sixty nine students graduated from peters township high school today there are three hundred sixty three of us accepting diplomas over the past fifty years peters township his experience tremendous change the area's transformed from a small farming community of only a couple thousand to a large upper middle class suburb with over twenty thousand residents as i stand here living in an age where i can port an i phone and look at virtually anything imaginable it's difficult for me to imagine a time were color television was considered new and exciting i can barely remember life before  alone trying to comprehend life without computers however even with the large time gap between our generations there are some common threads that unite us your generation grew up with the constant threat of soviet attack and nuclear holocaust just as our generation has experienced the unremitting danger of terrorist attacks on american soil both of our generations were born in the middle of a war and observe the outbreak of another before high school graduation just as your generation witnessed the construction of the interstate highway system as the great connector of goods our generation has seen the rise of the internet as the great connector of ideas but while the technology and threats around us change the one thing that doesn't is the feeling of being eighteen the feeling of wanting to get away from home butting heads with our parents and the desire to make something out of ourselves and get out in the world the common feelings that come with late adolescence unite all generations and so my class of two thousand and nine let us not forget to always hold reverence for prior generations because as ronald reagan once said each generation goes further than the ones preceding it because it stands on the shoulders of those generations i will say thank you to the class of nine hundred fifty nine for giving us solid shoulders to stand on it is now my great honor and privilege to introduce to you the peterson school graduating class of nine hundred fifty nine please hold your applause until frederick ladies and gentlemen i present to you the peters township high school graduating class of nine hundred fifty nine getting our director the nonexistent for her class freshman year was a year when our class began to fall into place at high school and basically all we wanted was to fit in and be a part of the school as a student council president i've gotten to know our class well and have seen the many things we can do over the past four years members of our class have accomplished many things in sports we have had both boys and girls soccer teams compete for the state championship or girls field hockey and lacrosse teams and boys basketball teams are with champions or girls basketball team has been aware and we have had several individual track and swimming athletes advance far  national of commendation and even for national merit scholarship finalists which are two of the highest awards one can receive a fellow classmates have excelled outside of academics and sports as well this year fourteen member i just took classes that interested me and tried to turn in work that i was proud of i never would have guessed that i'd be standing on this stage today and i've learned that sometimes our actions can lead to unexpected outcomes throughout high school i worked hard and stay true to my interests and along the way i learned to value and embrace passion and curiosity as a junior i participated in an internship at more physical therapy this internship gave me the chance to use everything i learned in my anatomy and physiology class to help real people in fact i've come to realize that every class we take in high school helps prepare us to face challenges in the real world i'm sure every student here myself included has wondered during class one of my actually going to use this but think about it in math class we're not just plugging numbers into formulas we're improving our concentration and learning to approach problems in multiple ways and in english we learn to formulate and express our own opinions the final grades that appear on our transcript are important but the real significance of a class lies  its ability to repair student to handle different situations we're all passionate about different things so we use the skills learned in high school in all kinds of ways some people will translate their love of writing into careers in journalism others will use their persuasive skills to fight for people's rights and still others like me will use the knowledge and skills learned in their science classes to help people get back on their feet my passion for physical therapy and the sciences is matched by my interest in foreign cultures i have taken spanish since i was a freshman and this year i even took a p though i don't plan to become a spanish translator or professor i so love spanish culture especially its r and film my interest in spanish culture may never be part of my career but i love being able to understand a spanish film without having to read the subtitles or to look at a process and understand the layers of history and emotion and captures i am fortunate enough to have found two passions physical therapy and the spanish culture two areas of interest that bring me joy and make my world richer and more exciting though some people might dismiss my interest in spanish as just a hobby i firmly believe that we should never give up on the things we love who can reject the happiness our interest will bring or the places they will take us in the words of the great scholar joseph campbell follow your bliss do it you love and let yourself be surprised by the outcome one of the best things about this class is our this year in english are a very meaningful and inspirational book things they carried details a journey of young soldiers close to our age during the vietnam war the no throughout our career as a p t h s we have carried numerous items we have carried pencils textbooks notebooks and countless sheets of paper we have carried the proper uses for commas complex mathematical formulas such as a log range error abound and that one specific detail that might have been mentioned for one second in physics class but happens to be on the tests there needs to fit in to find the best seat at lunch and to join enough clubs to get into college or other things that we have carried in high school we had the support of our family friends teachers and the administration to lighten the load of course it all changes as we move on in the college that ing true freedom is now encountered with that right comes the weight of responsibility mothers no longer carry all the laundering duties and teachers will likely carry indifference towards their students academic outcomes it is in this environment that the duty to become professional adults comes upon us we shoulder the task of breaking from the ordinary to become extraordinary also we now have the ability to forge a reputation completely a result of our own actions that reputation can either be worn as a red badge of courage a scarlet letter we almost embrace these new challenges and strengthen ourselves for the extra weight acquiescing to all of this will no doubt come with feelings of fear and regret if these sensations are not shed they will limit our progress hopefully a strong backbone has been built of moral fiber in our young to bear these trials in times of hesitation always remember the peers township right to support one who falters i firmly believe it is much within our reach to significantly change this world think there are parents or just one generation before us when they went off to college they carried stamps pens and paper to keep in touch with friends and family as we leave we carry cell phones and laptop computers the progress made and that one generational gap is truly astonishing you all provoked me to implement real change by voting me most likely to cure cancer additionally i now put the weight of progress on all of you to make discoveries in your respective fields barack obama the man recently chosen to lead the united states now carries the great burden of the hope of an entire nation we must share that burden and lift the nation from this drought into prosperity we still have much to carry but our compliments thus far are considerable and give us hope congratulations class of two thousand  i told you you would be disappeared at this time i'd like to introduce the guidance counselors who shortly will be reading names for the distribution of diplomas as i call their names with a stand in please hold your pages good evening and welcome to the celebration of the graduation of the class of two thousand and nine i like to thank the class of nineteen fifty nine for joining us this evening along with our administration faculty members family friends of our graduates to the class of two thousand and nine congratulations you made it there may have been some doubt but with the help of your family and friends you're here this evening let's take this opportunity if you would and stand up turn around and give all those people behind you a round of applause you've changed grown and achieve goals you never thought you could reach now you stand at the start of a new chapter of your lives as i look back on all the struggles you have faced i realize how far you've come and during this time the world you live in has changed so much to you've lived through wars and terrorist attacks nine eleven is no longer just a number you learned how to email or text t and twitter you communicate differently than your parents and you think differently to there are many times when your parents wondered if you were from another planet i know i did but what you do have in abundance is potential and opportunity when you leave here the only boundaries you have are those you place on yourselves as much as i'd like to tell you to stick to a plan to be successful life just doesn't work that way anymore the career you dream of today may not even exist in ten years we've tried to give you guidance and help you grow but the world that lies ahead is beyond our imagination you may have times in the future when things get tough and you begin to doubt yourself but in the words of my personal hero jimmy valve and don't give up don't ever give up during your years at peter's township high school you have to endure learning things that you are sure you will never need knowing the square root of pot may not help you in the future but knowing how to find that answer will as you move forward either to college the workforce the military or your own path keep your heart and mind open to new ideas and new challenges the day you stop learning is the day you stop living take the tools you've gathered in peter's township along with the memories and friends and make your own story make it a story that brings joy to your heart and grows with each passing day you will need to be ready to change and reinvent yourself and no matter how hard it gets no matter what challenges you're faced with don't give up don't ever give up take ownership of your life except the mistakes celebrate the victories and never make excuses i wish you the best of luck in the future and may god bless your journey from here jacob joshua barney christopher william back brandon william glasgow christian martin br david anthony these are brown jeffrey dominic frisco kathleen kelly brown stephanie brian drew anthony casey adam carver ryan william calling cody edward thomas dare alina marie chapman emily's rose cor stephanie marie  joshua matthews do you think john david cecil edmund alexander leonard bring andrew peter godly nicholas james gold wesley thomas ro michael herder benjamin michael hill michael thomas hauser kevin hunter michael andrew meyer michael miller michael christopher merg jared allen nicholson alexandra danielle pay for ready andrew thomas paul benjamin edward peters derek alexander reading andrew read benjamin mark robert alexandra j raymond nicholas and homo wesley paul smith bro robert smith eric marcel bennett and dale andrew fitzgerald well paul edward of winter to begin by telling you that i recognize things tonight one you've already heard five inspiring speeches to the pensive probably drop the puck already and  i'm the only thing standing between you and the proclamation of graduation imagine the stress so i know i need to keep this short and i will but i just need you to indulge me for a couple minutes because one thing you'll come to realize if you get married when you get older you always get accused of trying to have the last word and tonight i officially can have the last word and i'm going to take advantage of it so for the past thirteen years most of you have had the opportunity to be exposed to an education of excellence through the cooperation of fantastic staff from loving parents and guardian from a supportive community now i say most of you because some of us a little later along the way but nonetheless all of you had the opportunity to learn to read and write and hopefully to learn the calculations you need for at least survival of knowledge for you we also helped build those skills that are necessary for you to be successful in this twenty first century skills like character education and leadership cooperation teamwork problem solving creativity and my favorite critical thinking i emphasize critical thinking because and sometimes in adulthood we tend to think that the smartest and most creative people are the people who have all the answers but you will come to learn if you haven't already it's the people who have all the questions because it's only questioning will gain  knowledge that you will be reflective and become prieta question question that we've taught you the things that your parents teach you but especially question what the world tries to teach you so i have a question for you tonight my question is this what do you plan to do now with the one thing that you brought with you when you entered something that only you have responsibility for developing we can't take credit for this and that you will be taking with you today and the rest of your life you're wondering what i'm talking about i'm talking about your essence some of you have a different or different word for essence but i'll help you understand what i'm talking about by giving you just a brief synopsis of a story i read recently in chicken soup for the work a long time ago in a town far away from here  and grew to be a chain of stores from across the nation the man continued his business and supported his family and time went on and he became older and started to become ill and realize that maybe it was time to pass