or or or we have something special for you today we're going to depart with our tradition and we're going to have another version of the star spangled banner for you so if you could all remain standing this is to support the wonderful you here this is a serious ceremony it is one of the few passages in our culture that marks very clearly the beginning of another era in our young people's lives i have a reading i'd like to share with you that i think it's about our school it's something i feel very strongly and will probably perhaps help center ourselves in this day but it's about this house this is a house fully in a gathering of nature and of people and nature a house of friendship a haven in trouble and open room for the encouragement of our struggle it is a house of freedom guarding the dignity and worth of each person that office a platform for the free voice for declaring both in times of security and danger the full undone undivided conflict binion is a house of truth seeking where the scientists can encourage the devotion of his quest for her quest and the mystic progress this house is a cradle for our dreams and the workshop are coming down for today we are also commemorating a classmate who passed interesting this is the first europe remember that the banquet was on the house and it was because of the hard work of the rich folk and he's a many faceted person he's a quiet leader he's a young man who participates in a broad variety the time you may not remember that song well but the fact remains that every single member of this quest started his schooling or her schooling experience with that classic tune the gravitas of whether or not you like sing it day after day and kindergarten you began your epic educational bus ride approximately twelve years ago with the ride may not have always been perfect it's had its ups and downs but i think i speak for all of you when i say it's definitely been exciting enjoyable ride every moment along the way when our bus ride started twelve years ago ronald reagan's in his last year of his first term as president of the united states kids were wearing  sneakers mimicking michael jackson's when the celtics were world champions led by three guys named larry kevin and robert the red sox didn't win the world series and my costello was not yet five feet tall we kids really do recognize or care about any of this i personally only care about playing with the blocks in class recess nap time and trying not to wet my pants during a day of school the world outside o kindergarten classroom was oblivious to all of us i bite my tongue and i say this now but school was our sanctuary a place we could get away from the confusing side were somehow we all learned to color within the lines and s correctly we graduated from kindergarten the rest of the route through elementary school was relatively small too we had a gigantic speed bump the chain we middle school if this time around was we were all sadly saying farewell to that wonderful generation known as the eighty's that decade a massachusetts governor had a crazy idea he could be president of the united states the new kids on the block were hot new music crew driving millions of teenage girls while their every breath larry kevin and robert was still the celtics but somehow they looked a step slower this time the red sox didn't want to world series and my car still had just passed the six foot m this time around school is no longer a sanctuary we all felt awkward and goofy and various times in school we were developing new attitudes towards friends parents and my favorite subject members of the opposite sex even the building didn't seem friendly like it did now mentor school our school was an ancient decrypted in just plain ugly architectural nightmare despite all this we trudged together through middle school and meted out to our next stop on a magical ride down the high school this time o larry karen robert ended their careers in boston the red sox did on their world series in my costello reached the mark of six foot five inches tall but this time we cared a lot about the world around us because we're becoming bigger and bigger ride has reached its final destination graduation day we have survived three presidents larry kevin and robert absolutely no world series conquest by the red sox countless hair wardrobe and music styles and most amazingly my costello has finally stopped growing so much has gone on in such a short time the purpose of taking on this bus ride today is to demonstrate how quickly moments in time pass we must not watch  urge all of you to seize the moment to make a difference let your voice be heard let our generation make a name for it so let's begin to fix this broken more today is the first day on our new journey and made this skipping a day's school life moves pretty fast if you don't stop and look  we now would like to share with you another musical interlude by my side from godspell it's the from the senior class play i would like this folks to come up and and share once again one of the wonderful traditions we have here is a school in our music program in our theater program welcome dr hall and dr ivan mr wright members of the school committee parents friends teachers and the cost of nine hundred ninety six graduation marks the official transition between the sheltered world of childhood and the exciting but also frightening world of adult when we graduate and leave the safe haven of high school we will need to exercise the maturity that we have developed here we will need to take on adult responsibilities and we also have the freedom and opportunities that adulthood brings this is a day to remember the past and to look back on our fond memories of high school but it is also a day to think about the future our diplomas in hand we will begin the next stage of our lives in the exhilarating new role of adults becoming an adult can be very difficult and on the threshold of adulthood we both fear and welcome it growing up requires becoming self reliant rather than depending on others it sometimes involves leaving home and starting over in a new place these prospects can be very intimidating on the other hand children long for the freedom of adults and for the increased enjoyment of life that sophistication and maturity can bring we as young adults have a future ahead of us to use as we wish and have the energy and talent necessary to shape the course of our lives and the world around us as we prepare to graduate from high school we are filled with conflicting feelings both of anxiety and of the tremendous optimism high school graduation is a rite of passage there are marks this transition with a formal process that is universally established and recognized ritualized passages between different stages of life are found all over the world and like high school graduation they help us to define our role in society presenting a clear division between children and adults from primitive to advanced cultures the need for formal recognition of adulthood is universal rites of passage provide a guideline for undergoing the difficult passage out of childhood they also help us as young adults to understand our own complicated feelings the attention on new adults and the celebrations that accompany rites of passage help entice children to leave their safe if boring ways of life and dare to become adults senior is fun but is also important even monumental it begins as a last fling with childhood and gradually begins to focus on graduation and growing up and moving on the rituals of senior year are familiar to everyone involved with high school and are a facet of the school tradition that is so deeply ingrained that is part of the mythology of every student from the beginning a freshman year the rituals begin to look into the future in the form of college applications and s a t s the experience of applying to college is not entirely enjoyable but it seems larger than life as if we are part of a big important machine we are suddenly judged by complete strangers in a very impersonal process and the results of these judgments directly affect our futures this process is like a ritual because it is universal and inflexible everyone across the country fills out the same obligations and takes the same standardized tests after college decisions have been made in the second part of the ritual the celebrations begin the senior cost play and the hollowing dance in the fall begin and fall the prof graduation and the all night party are rewards for those who survived the initiation and they also set the tone of excitement to the occasion we feel that we are participating in something bigger than simply receiving a diploma that we are important and special the knowledge of these rituals is something that we all have in common and it is an important part of our high school experience i remember in freshman year how much we invited the seniors how much we wanted to be like them we were so excited that we wanted to start senior moment to read on and there is freshman now have moved into the role of seniors the younger casas look up to us in the same way that we used to idolise seniors as the oldest class and the closest to adulthood we have become leaders for the younger kids we fill official leadership roles taking our tourists at the officers of clubs for the captains of teams seniors we are able to take full advantage of what h cost to offer we are also able to contribute more than we ever have it is ironic that now at the peak of our high school experience we must move on in fact although senior year is one of the best times in high school seniors devote much of their energy to making plans for leaving our dream of being seniors eventually came true but now that has our time here is almost done and we are already thinking about what lies ahead it seems at the anticipation of the senior experience is as important as the experience itself and this is an important part of the ritual the thought of reaching senior year helps to motivate underclassman to continue with a demanding high school program seniors are role models in a way which is both an honor and a responsibility the seniors of the future and the community as a whole must not be disappointed or the cycle will not continue the tradition of senior rituals provides a complementary sect of actions and i don't know motional a confusing time this can be very helpful it is often difficult to define genuine feelings on the other hand the tradition may be very limiting almost everyone has very complicated feelings about graduating and leaving high school but tradition expects graduating seniors to be happy all the time instead we experience a mixture of emotions there is excitement because this is an exhilarating time in our lives and happiness about moving ahead to a promising future these feelings coexist with sadness about leaving old friends and  starting over in a new place with adult responsibilities the mythology surrounding graduation cannot tell the whole story because it doesn't recognize sadness along with them and the celebration or the anxiety because of the excitement about the future only children see emotions in black and white and having these mixed feelings is part of maturity it is fitting for us to be experiencing emotional confusion on the eve of adulthood as we grow older we will find ourselves trying to sort out the mixed feelings surrounding all of the most important issues in our lives this is one more way in which high school graduation is the beginning of adulthood having reached this day we all survived our initiation ritual and look forward to promising futures as adults we have a world of opportunities in front of us we're on the edge of a future as exciting as we can imagine it is natural for us to be experiencing some confusion but it is but it is also natural to want to put that confusion aside for the present we  energy into studying the faces of the individual members of our class your faces have provided the background of the past five years of my life ever since i first came to in eighth grade i wanted to study the minute details of your faces because they are essential components to the story of my life and i do not know when i will see many of you again when i began to conscientiously study your faces to receive our high school diplomas are certified stamps of maturity i believe that our class could immediately reach a consensus that we are proud of this itchy event but i must confess that i have found there is an inherent threat  reaching maturity pablo picasso once said every child is an artist the problem is their main england once we grow up i think back to the thursday before last our final official school day when the routine that had provided a foundation for our lives for more than a decade finally ended to thirteen years of schooling every student looked to that final day as a distant beacon of freedom i had imagined that on that day i would feel almost superhuman yet when the end came i felt somehow empty in my last hours of the h s i saw a melancholy friends scattered throughout lonely hallways school that day to see an outside world  innocence project my thoughts on to the camera and this accounts for the charm we find in every baby picture moving past these pictures and travelling through time towards the present i witnessed the gradual development of my night one in which i competed with friends to capture the most bizarre face on film and one in which i was decked out in formal wear with my face purposely drawn enormously long in feigned elegance those three candidates displayed the substance of m final day in school i fear that i had lost the spontaneity of my character as a necessary part of becoming an adult i realize that in the process of reaching that day the process of learning maturity imagination fall into a state  disuse education has taught us to follow the rules and to find the right answer a child sees the world according to the dictates of his own imagination and so as children we use our individual desires and guidelines to create a brilliant region of the world as a child i read of the arrival of summer vacation is the supremest of joys in those days i had no structure or plans in life to prepare for no summer job to find and yet desirable extensions of our own self images our imagination can work as the cameras are of our minds capturing candids of ourselves in every possible pose whether it be a chart person of the board or as social activist as professional athlete or as a marine biologist as hollywood actor or as jungle explorer consuming as much knowledge as possible and digesting it through the channels of our imagination allowed us to see the rarest capacities of our characters and enjoy the wonders of this technicolor reality we should not hide from the rich immaturity of our dreams but rather we should staring straight at them as a child does to  camera and as long as we allow ourselves to indulge in the photo albums of our imaginations we can don the masks of maturity and stillest gave the now existence of a purely realistic outlook  in order to become arguably the greatest artist of the twentieth century on his canvases he depicts people and scenery in strange shapes unique to his own eyes and he paints the world in the bull shades of his emotions perhaps he was or was the greatest artist of the century because his style never stopped evolving up until his death at the age of ninety two continued to create fresh masterpieces he could manage this because he never lost what he recognized as his ability to perceive the world as a child would probably because it has become immortal presence in the galleries of the world because his work shows the anti realism of the imagination that captivates and thrills us as  primary colors and color outside the lines i wish the best of luck to the class of one thousand nine hundred six thank you sarah thank you dr for your thoughtfulness this is the time where we recognize the academic achievement in our school by department in the past years we used to just recognize academic achievement this year we're also going to recommend and recognize i'm sorry community support the faculty in both cases has voted the results of these these are words i also wanted to share something at this point that is pretty special that will show the specialness of the school we have some poets in the school literary magazine came out just a couple few short weeks ago and i have to say that i found it to be remarkable and i wanted to share some of these with you and some of them are about some of the things that have been on our minds as a class over this past year the first one is by harry hard it's a very powerful poem and here is a very very good poet and it's called faceless how wrong it seems to be my color is a burden to me i breathe i sweat i be lead like a human human being from every other race i have no positive identification only blackness in my face i wear my squint skin as if it were a shroud brainwashed to be afraid of something to be ashamed of something i should be proud harry wrote another poem that's equally powerful i'd like to share with him reading that perhaps will give some perry never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the my fear works underneath a new road beyond the unknown on past unfamiliar undiscovered awaits and i welcom and then there's a wonderful poem that parents may not parents are thinking about this today and it was wonderful to me to read it and to realize that young people thought it too because i think it's very special and this was by just chill hirai just a little bit long but it's very very good two beings it's called the little girl two beings can bind themselves and it was reflected in the child they made all their wonders poured into one they gave her a name mama would change your diapers and tickle her toes daddy would make silly faces she would give mama held on to the child inside before her so she could have a friend daddy gave her baths mama would pretend the apple sauce he said her was an airplane and make funny engine noises if she soon down into the baby's mouth that gave her a piggy back ride mama talked her into each night and kissed her cheek daddy would peek in to watch her sleep and they love their baby and she grew mama cooked or soup to feed her polls daddy taught her how to read but mama prayed where daddy took her trick or treating mama brought her path and shiny black dress and shoes daddy would hold her hand to walk in the first day of school and they love their child and she group mother talked to her about boys daddy gave her advice as well as daddy got on her nerves as well as she got on theirs daddy said she talked on the phone too much and they love their teenager and then she grew mom gave her a curfew and stayed up late to sure she got home safe dad taught her how to drive and bought her a car mom didn't like it when she pierced her ear again and again but still said she was beautiful dad took her to visit colleges and pushed her to get good grades mama pectoral lunches always giving her too many goodies mom helped her pick out a form of down dead took a video of graduation and they love this young woman and she grew and she grew away from bedtime stories and waving her goodbye in the windows whenever she went out with her friends and she still liked her mom's lunches but wanted to make her own and she liked her dad's advice but she wanted to make her own mistakes and she liked her parents concerned but she thought she was old enough to know what was right for her and she loves her parents but for some reason it's hard to let her go i think they miss the baby the child teen but she will always be there she doesn't understand why it's so hard for them until she has a baby of her own and she knows then perhaps she will be  there are a large lots more and it was hard to choose but i just want to share with you the richness of this class it's now my pleasure to present to you our departmental wards physical education department goes to a young woman who they describe as self motivated mature bright cheerful very capable always works hard to improve record democrat and grades she will be attending you mass boston  social studies department award goes to a young woman who maybe one of the most incredible folks i've seen in the sixteen years i've been here she's on the national honor society top ten percent of her class so much in club peer leadership dear member of the varsity softball team for years and the most incredible soccer players i've ever seen three times at all sexually all star could go on and on phelps school athlete scholarship she was just into given the most prestigious award as a scholar the english department word goes to a young woman who had a perfect eight hundred her verbal s a t eight hundred french sat two presidential scholars those of you to don't know that there are it's a very very unusual you know presidential scholar in school  and then our other society she's involved in the international the environmental club the highpoint the zenith she's and been involved in the epic program it taught us she hosted a japanese exchange student and if you haven't had the the foreign language award goes to a young woman who's been on the soccer team for four years tennis team for four years she's in the much ink club here leadership sat sack plays the piano she coaches youth soccer was a camp counselor the mathematics department and science department were go to the same person this year he's a member of the national honor society national merit scholar student government a lodging club math team band editor of yearbook and high point the next set of awards are for the good teachers voted for this by department for young people who they felt contributed to our school community in a very special way  were henry national at exam two silver medals performing arts company outstanding achievement junior member of the belmont dramatic club high point or field hockey team you know she was the tech tech crew for all of the plays captain of the ice hockey team it goes on and on but one of the most gifted and wonderful young women i've known in the sixteen years i've been here more now standing member of the performing arts company she singlehandedly organized the japanese e g students program she's was co captain the field hockey team she started an ice hockey team along with a number of her friends here she's a member of the madrigals and represented in some ways the conscious of the school the time that she was here  contributed to community service she's a middle school tutor she'll be attending northeastern university in the fall katherine this is the i don't work from our performing fine performing arts department this is a tough one because we have so many people in that department who have contributed so much over the years this young woman is  special she's a national or committed student she's a member of the national honor society the asian american she's an officer in the yearbook she is receive the p t a science award she has her very very best students should be attending abuse peer leadership goes on and on she's a wonderful actress she's probably one of the most ethical and thoughtful people i've ever met and somebody we're going to mess around here jillian ho this young man does everything in the school he is probably the most gifted actors i've seen in a long time i'm told that he can do it in an impression of almost anyone he's been in the course performing arts he's on the hockey team he's just probably one of the most talented youngsters i think we're going to hear a lot about him in the future teachers are mark on his consideration of others his thoughtfulness and creativity he's an excellent student has been very very good citizen our school he said he was going to do the impression is good i think it's just as well this next person is a is our peer leadership program finalist in the most voice of democracy contest went to boy state program science award for economic actually play soccer tennis and does martial arts teacher com society national merit scholar commended orchestra member involved with the red cross activities teachers wrote self motivated dependable sensitive to the needs of others and shows great leadership leadership qualities this is a renaissance person he does music he does sports he does them with great vig this young woman is again i think you get getting the feeling hopefully that we have these we've lots of tremendous young folks here president and founder of the student produced video company member of an international club performing arts company member has done publish the art for the zenith captain of our city girl swim team she is self motivated person with a good leadership qualities and always has a wonderful smile in her face i the next young man ranks at the very top of his class he won the science award as the top science student has published articles on architectural design captain of the swim team active in the performing arts company dizziness staff member he's an active active with his scout troop he was an eagle scout he tutors other students in the school he volunteers in the community helping the less fortunate teachers comment about his work is that he's very mature and again considerate of others shows excellent creative and original thought chris church will you next show me as a member of the senior staff national honor society member your book staff state finalist national history day contest finalist in the voice of democracy i received a boston globe archer word teacher comments you foster graduates of nine hundred ninety six parents grandparents friends and relatives members of the faculty members of the school committee and other special guests i'm pleased to present school committees shield certificates to two graduating seniors and shield certificate for outstanding achievement and exceptional distinction in scholarship is awarded to the senior who is the goal valedictorian of the class a national merit finalist a presidential scholar a member of the national society recipient of the zenith literary award the princeton alumni association ward the massachusetts foreign language association ward the massachusetts association of school superintendents certificate of merit the p t a english the schildt certificate for outstanding achievement an exceptional distinction and scholarship is awarded to the senior who is that it valedictorian of the class commended student in the national merit scholarship program and a member of the national honor society recipient of the brown university book award the american association of teachers national german examination award and the p t a award in english the recipient of this  each year at graduation i'd like to take a brief moment to present for your reflection the ideas of a seminal thinker someone whose life has made a difference in our society and in the world today's reading has taken from the one nine hundred ninety four  l speech of a world leader our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure it is our light not our darkness that most frighten we ask ourselves who am i to be brilliant gorgeous talented and fabulous actually who are you not to be your a child of god your playing small does not serve the world there is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you we were born to make manifest the glory of god that is within us it's not just in some of us it's in everyone and as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same as we are liberated from our own fear our presence automatically liberates others the  author is a person of courage compassion and commitment nelson mandela president of south africa may his life and his words move you the graduates of one nine hundred ninety six and all of us to greater freedom and greater service of others and now to the school committee chairman mrs mar power i am pleased to certify that the seniors here president have met the requirements for graduation from don high school congratulat all michael a jennifer ellen austin omar are banned  edmund mitchell barry junior marco see jonathan david gra danielle h ross stanley chan nicole marlowe christopher christopher r churchill david matthew kristin marrie katherine amy to premium brian christopher d jeffrey michael kathy leno george into jonathan god one rituals balding greenberg david anthony david letterman had  melanie beth hayward kevin holme paul hopkins jessica rachel john carolyn and kenny alex catch a tor eric jensen landfr lindsey livermore edward lines michael james martone kevin michael michael james eric rosen christopher tyler nicole elizabeth war shannon williams erin larkin william have one last thing to do it's very special if we could have the magical singers police approach it's our tradition here for the past sixteen years to end our ceremony with the response saying and then a short  if we could get very very quiet this is a very very beautiful song and it's a good way for us to get