elementary middle school high school faculty teachers and administrators and in a moment i'm going to ask them to stand and i would hope that you would give them a round of applause supportive of how you feel about them on helping with your children through the journey of life to this point faculty administrators k through twelve place thank you now the group of individuals who are really the heartbeat in the soul of the district who really rarely get recognition are the school board members in the superintendent generally it is activities like this or sports activities you see the stooges see the faculty the coach or the principal or the assistant principal and you really never get to see the people behind the scenes that make it work like to recognize those individuals and if you would hold your applause to finish i would appreciate it  mr danza dow mrs marlene tobin and our superintendent dr diane kirk thank you very much we have four wonderful speakers for you today in order they will be alice a new paver gina francisco any eleanor in the cold done allison kirk the administration school board members faculty family and friends would also like to extend a very special welcome to those attending from the class of nineteen forty eight your fiftieth class reunion has special significance to all of us you have represented peters township high school well over the last five decades we the class of nineteen ninety eight will also represent our school as we travel through life we will be entering into the new millennium where we'll face new challenges and opportunities as we face these new experiences we'll continue to carry the pride of our school as novelly as those you here have done now i would like to introduce those attending from the class of nineteen forty eight please stand as i read your name i would like the audience to hold their plies until the end mrs dorothy zimmerman taylor mr fred worldly mrs margaret worley wilson mrs dolores canal didn't we come together didn't we live together didn't we cried together didn't we play together didn't we live together and together we lit up the world in these few verses carole king has put our thoughts today into words thirteen years has seen us through love and loss victory and defeat pain and pride the trials tribulations and celebrations we've shared have ultimately bonded us in a way few can anticipate and which is mostly gone and realize until today we look back and see that we've come a long way together and for some this is a spar as we will go together as we face the world as a unified front one last time i'd like to take a moment for  we played little league in grasshoppers we ate p b in jays and learned to tire shoes and we made friends we learned lessons we learned lessons and we built on what we learned and we did it together sometimes i think that we felt so much on those basic lessons that we've learned that we sometimes lose sight of them all i ever really needed to know i learned in kindergarten by robert reminds us not to forget of those basic lessons we learned in the beginning welcome sandbox wisdom tells us to play fair to share everything to say that you're sorry to learn and think and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day to watch for traffic hold hands and stick together we the class of nineteen ninety eight have gotten where we are today by working together and it will be difficult to reach our tomorrow alone as we take our first step into the direction of our future it is now time again for our class to remember to play fair hold hands and stick together thank you and good luck when i was younger my father used to tell me that there are very few moments in life which become so ingrained in your memory that you can picture them as vividly as if they were photographed in time i asked him how we managed to capture these images in our mind and he too assured me that i would eventually find out for myself and so i was surprised many years later in biology class when i came across a passage in our tex concerning this phenomenon it stated that the storage is an image in my mind which i had previously assumed was purely due to emotional impact is actually a physical process resulting from the release of chemicals looking back a number of thoughts come to my mind first i am impressed by science's ability to provide explanations and excited that are classes to bout's become the next to of this progress but at the same time it occurs to me that while science can describe the functioning of my brain it could never describe the functioning of my heart as we are about to embark upon our great future perhaps the most important things we take with us were not those that we learned in the pages of a textbook think about the past twelve years this will be the last time that our classes assembled together so allow yourself to appreciate the magnitude of talent the unique blend of personalities that are surrounding you at this moment take a photograph of the fleeting thoughts in your mind for in minutes they will disappear for all those sciences constantly progressing there are a few truths that have never and will never change and one of them is as follows despite what college you attend or what library you search never will you be able to recapture this moment in the pages of a textbook we will forever cherish the memories of graduation as we step forth into the future and so is the lyrics of green day advise take the photographs and the still frames in your mind hang them on a shelf have good health and good times it's something unpredictable but in the end it's right i hope you have the time of your life thank you very much as we approach the twenty first century we have been told repeatedly that we are the inheritors of the future that we need to be prepared for the problems of tomorrow and there we will need to fix the problems of today although it is true that there are many injustices in the world today we do not need to wait until tomorrow to correct these injustices we the class of nine hundred ninety eight need to take a stand today for we are not just members of the future but we are part of the community of the present and although tomorrow is full of shining opportunities those opportunities should be seized today and not left until tomorrow as we enter college or the workforce we impact the lives of those around us with our actions we change the lives of our friends and colleagues i challenge each of you to think of how your actions will affect others before you are as you reach success do so thoughtfully with compassion and with understanding help others to climb the mountain of success with you your congressman's will be more meaningful and failures less painful when shared among friends this in turn will help you learn how to realize your dreams as we leave this high school we will encounter new challenges which will test the gamut of our abilities do not let others tell you that your dream is impossible be assured that you have been prepared to face all of the challenges ahead of you remember nothing is impossible unless you do not try thank you graduation set forth by the commonwealth of pennsylvania and the board of school directors of peter's township school district i present to you mr kelley the class of  congratulations to you the class of one thousand nine hundred eighty recently americans all over this country celebrated memorial day a day to think and member those brave americans who gave their lives in defense of our freedom freedom what does that mean to you it might have had a different meaning for your parents and i who grew up in the sixty's we can all still remember the sounds of janis joplin and her hit song bobby mcgee it contained a popular line that was often repeated and went like this freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose i think we've all discovered that freedom gives us much to lose but much more to gain what we have learned is that freedom is all about the ability to make our own choices this includes accepting responsibility for the resulting actions and any consequences might follow this graduating class has also learned quite well the gravity of freedom and its effects the choices that you have made thus far have served you well decisions to do your homework study for a test pay attention in class and possibly even drop in activity to do instead concentrate on your school work have all paid off sure there has been much direction from your parents they have that uncanny ability to know when to limit choices and also when to allow your independence sometimes without you even knowing it in the end though you are ultimately responsible for getting the work done this class of one nine hundred ninety eight is one of the most decorated and high achieving classes ever from this district the character and leadership exhibited throughout your ranks  is second to none this graduation is the result of the efforts of you students who are teachers your parents and our administrative staff let us congratulate ourselves for finishing all the hard work it took to get to this day lastly let's congratulate the class of one nine hundred ninety eight for the freedom you have enjoyed the choices you have made in the christopher bar sure daniel brazil aaron charles richard gone matthew edward andrea miller jamie michelle ready a mark and kimberl lauren blair peterson amanda dawn phillips meghan leah rice rebecca mccal danielle marie rope ol necklace patrick redford jay runs the house and aaron joshua raper christopher julia ray alyssa and snyder jennifer gale troy david robertson trip shawn robert walsh we will get it here in a second at this time thank you obviously with the rain we have had a few mechanical failures but it doesn't mean that we should take anything away from this just fabulous day and it's with great great honor that i get a chance to introduce dr diane kirk our superintendent this is her first full year were extremely proud of her and it's with her leadership that i think we're going to another level and into the future our superintendent d as i have the unique privilege here today of the in the last one to offer a few words of advice and to extend my congratulations to you graduating seniors of peters township high school most of you are probably thinking please make the words and very few and get to the congratulations quickly and as far as the advise well with twelve years the bias and enough is enough while that is true for you have had nurturing caring and yes advice from your parents teachers counselors coaches and activities sponsors to last a lifetime and we all hope that it does just that last a lifetime you had rules to follow and most of them are contained in this one hundred seventeen page document known as the student parent handbook but in a few minutes you will no longer be under the authority of the rules of this hand but don't engage in preliminary celebration for much bigger handbooks await you there will always be rules to follow laws to obey and yes advice to consider so let me provide the following not as rules to follow boyce advice to consider but merely points to ponder as you leave your day to chart your course and create your future first be willing to pay the price today is preparation determines tomorrow's achievement someone wants to approach the great violinist fritz kreisler and offer this praise after a concert by saying i give my life to play as beautifully as you do and the musician responded ideas you graduates have already invested four or more years as a down payment don't throw that downpayment away second be self discipline emerson said that our primary need in life is somebody who will make us to do what we can we've all had that somebody at some time or other but from now on you yourself will have to be that somebody you will have to have the wherewithal to make yourself do what you're capable of doing third set some goals that's not the same as being disciplined discipline a set in your alarm at five am and making yourself get up when it goes off but goal setting is knowing why you set the alarm for  five am in the first place for learn to get along with others to get along with other people you have to care about them genuinely we don't have friends in our lives until we learn to get outside ourselves and care about what's happening in another person's life and in our community at large  be a dream or we've often heard george bernard shaw squelch some men see things as they are and say why i dream things that never were and say why not well we need men and women like you answer in our world saying why not sext take risks don't be afraid to fail the world is full of people who follow wherever the path leads but we need people in the world who will strike out where there is no power and create a superhighway seven stay informed justice oliver wendell holmes said man's mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimension i hope that after your four years here your mind has been stretched so that you will never be satisfied to stop learning about what's going on around you  ethical know when to compromise and when to stick to your convictions because what you once knew to be right and wrong is still right and wrong ni someone has our play observed that many people spend their lives climb in the ladder to success only to find when they get to the top of the ladder is leaning against the wrong building you have to select the way you measure success in your own life so class of nineteen ninety eight find the right building and start climbing those ladders as i say with the authority vested in me by the peers chanche of board of spaulding rector's and the commonwealth of pennsylvania i now pronounce you graduate