we present ourselves before the at this time to mark this special occasion in our lives we intend to celebrate and to reaffirm for ourselves that every achievement brings new opportunity and greater work and devotion wherein they have failed or themselves or others be merciful we pray for parents and faculty administrator s close to them in this special moment pride be nurtured and sprinkled with a measure of a sense that these young people now go forward separated from ourselves we come together invoking the right messing grant that this celebration may be five points in our lives and that from this point we go forward to share all that we have been given with the world and people around us we pray in the name of the one who grants life  i welcome you again we had a beautiful day a great time great opportunity for sharing cry stage is a day in which communications become better which feelings become better which thoughts of seventeen eighteen years ago a child being born diploma that means that they have completed certain requirements for a public school in the state of pennsylvania some of them have completed more than just minimum requirements and i guess that's true with all of us in our life that we do some of taking more advantage of the opportunities and others there's one thing for sure that you know that i know today we are at a time of change thousand seventy two and the trucker put a book out called future shock i read it i thought the man was kind of futuristic he was talking about change taking place faster than man could deal with it and the social logical problems resulting from that too rapid a change i think we're experiencing that today we're experiencing at a time when heavy industry is out in the labor and people are wondering if certain age groups are wondering where they're going to work when the time where we need to take a look at a lifetime of learning we do take a look at the skills that are needed for the future we need to realign our educational institutions so that they are culminating in those skills so that we can take that little saying we say sometimes about you give a man a fish and eats for a day teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime and these people need a life time of learning or a lifetime of work and i hope they will pursue all the opportunities that come their way that they will not pass by opportunities that they will take advantage of any further training and prepare themselves for a productive life once one has taken care of oneself and all the conditions if there be a family then one considers the return of the others in the community giving of oneself part of life and that's the ultimate goal that i think we should be working towards  what we're doing for others subtle problems today that will face these people they're in the news every day a divorce rate of forty to fifty percent that's a failure rate people we're all part of that situation it's a difficult one it's not going to be solved by the federal government or the state government i don't know where the answer lies but i think it's partly in communications it's partly an understanding and working together and not giving up as easy as maybe some of us do and challenge just class to take advantage of opportunities to make commitments and be productive with your life for yourself and for others enjoy the here and now the future will take care of itself somehow the grass is never greener over there trying to live your life and one day i think there's a lot of truth about life in these few lines from a popular so we stand here at this moment where i think it's graduation ceremony surrounded for the last time by all of our friends family by family members our minds and thoughts are most likely elsewhere filled with images of i can't wait to get out of this place we are seniors and we've worked very long and very hard to get to where we are today to graduation in fact most of our memorable life has been spent in preparation this occasion we can't wait to get out of high school and on to other things whether it is college technical school the military or into the working world it is good to be excited and to look forward to these new experiences but sometimes i wonder if people spent too much time concern with what will happen if they felt appreciate what is occurring around them at the moment everyone can never wait until the class their end to be over  day to get through the week the weekend over the school year to be finished and summer vacation to begin the scary thought about this type about it to is that some point in your life you might realize there isn't much to look forward to i know it's hard to imagine today's eighteen year olds ourselves ten twenty or fifty years from now trying to think back to your grade school that do you remember thinking how incredibly far away this high school senior seem to be and how we thought we would never be like them yet here we are today actually graduating from high school life can be truly relative impressions and ideas that strike us one way one moment seem completely unreasonable just minutes later changes in our feelings can be as trivial as to what our favorite song is from week to week just complex as to who our friends are from year to year there aren't a lot of people you can say that's not the exact same friends they did an elementary school people change their values change with them it is a simple fact of life because of this change it is difficult to plan ahead for predict what will happen only in the present can we be sure of what is going on what we are feeling i'm not suggesting however to completely disregard past experiences for future planning it is good to remember the past and to learn from  but we shouldn't while one regret things that happened we can't change it is also good to look to the future and to have goals and not to concentrate solely on reaching every one of us without living the experiences of today the best of our ability we will never achieve its goals you might think if i could just get out of this place and start something different everything would be great it might be ok for a while but soon you would fall into the same old rut of wishful thinking the circumstances might have changed you and your attitude toward life how can i try to realize that life is now on this day this moment but life is really what happens when you're so busy planning for the future if you think of your days now it's only stepping stones to a better future then you might be missing out on the special enjoyment that each individual day can bring looking at graduation and this life it is not a finite was not trying to get the order over down on anyone who has cheated it's just something that i feel i need to talk about it's something that's bothered me not something that i've been angry or mad at anyone about  in one sense i couldn't care less if i was didn't cheat it has never hurt me and probably want in as much as a doctor who cheated on his medical exams in fact one probably doesn't hear about cheating in the news because cheating on tests and papers only in some cases they need them to get into college they're pressed for time due to a job or school activities is a means of keeping justify receiving a great that will please our parents and make us acceptable to college sometimes it does seem that the end justifies the means a famous person once said success is a socially judge of right and wrong that person however had a committed suicide and he himself is off it were stated by millions but the it gives an understanding of the economy which effects the jobs we have and the prices we pay it gives us an understanding of the other is that we are feeling now the lamp electrical socket and their own bodies instead of learning deprives one of understanding and remembering the causes for occurrences that will happen in one's life jews lose a chance to go out and knowledge some people may feel that doing it and it takes guts but test is some things we don't like doing such as inning of action was exercising a study that will make us more able to meet and when the other challenges we all face in life when you pass w that will be left is the impact impressions and memories that you're left others i think today which you have to die in mind where you've lived your life i think we all have grown a lot in the past five years in first grade we anyone who knows me word to describe me first thing they would say is that i'm shy being shy can sometimes be an advantage more often it is a disadvantage when i was asked to give a speech i almost said no well my reasons for saying yes at the top responsibility as i walked in mr shavers off following morning given my decision i kept thinking how easy it would be to say no if i said no i could sit through graduation and let it happen to me rather than let me have and the thing is if this might seem trivial but to me it was more like if i said no i'd be a coward i don't think that mr sze for anyone else with thank you know howard but i would and that would be worse although i don't think i realized at the time at the time how lucky we were to have this opportunity at first i disagreed with and later i realized that he was right i had the opportunity to make any kind of statement that i wanted to this year's graduating class i could talk about the teachers the students the school the work van halen to unfortunately when i was siting to give the speech i wasn't thinking about as a great opportunity i was thinking about how i feel while i was up here and believe me i feel kind of nervous there's no specific reason that i can say i want to give this speech but i think it has to be with responsibility both myself and more importantly to all of you i'm not a peer because i enjoy speaking across more than five hundred people here because someone thinks i have something worth saying and people might benefit by hearing it that's the point of my speech there's a time when you have to make a decision based not on yourself on how it will affect other people regardless of its effect on you don't extend the reason i'm giving speeches for myself but more or change it because when you're asked that question of who are you by yourself or your god or by anyone else you're the one who's responsible for that answer thank you just very open communication my pleasure to introduce to you the members of the class and i think thirty six their presence at our commencement is an honor to the class of one nine hundred eighty six their presence in rich's there's the board sincere congratulations to the members of the class of nine hundred eighty six i would also like to offer a warm welcome to our returning graduates from the class of nine hundred thirty six it is nice to ha with us today when i was visiting the high school last week i stopped to converse with a member of this year's graduating class i asked him what were his plans for after graduation he planned to major in business administration at a nearby college i asked him what influenced him to major in business he said well actually this is wh i'd rather major in english i would really like to be a writer but my parents are afraid i won't be able to get a high paying job after graduation they want me to be realistic and go into business consideration is indicative of a trend being cited today with some alarm and recent carnegie report noted there has been a three hundred percent rise in the average student college loans student and dead indebtedness may be drawing undergraduates away from the liberal arts toward more lucrative majors like business and engineering a survey taken by princeton organization used to study ways to improve american education suggests that many undergraduates do not pursue careers in the field of their prime interest instead too often economics is the deciding factor in their career choices it's alarming to realize that only one third of today's college students majoring in engineering science or computer science claims those were their prime field of interest only forty seven percent of business majors said business was the field they were really interested in studying in contrast  only two percent of american congress students were pursuing music as a career eighty three percent of that music majors stated music was their passion new jobs and industries are being created and existing industries are being modernized raising the demand for skilled workers in the service industries which support automation while we will need scientists and engineers and people trained in business in the near future we will also need liberal arts graduates for their people skills and their language and cultural backgrounds and education majors to educate the students of tomorrow job security should be considered in your career planning but it should not make your personal aspirations and tell them subservient to you what are your plans include car which technical study military service or immediate job opportunities wrong a path that interests you with the strength of conviction be the best they're going to ever get desire to be morris mandel recently commented on security in the press and his comments some of the message i would like to meet with you today he said when god made the earth are beginner in t v or easters absolute economic and social sister has freedom from want but when god made the eagle he declared the blue sky is the limit be able to your own house so the eagle built on the very highest mountain le of english french greatly miss this spring suddenly planning for retirement tracy a susan michelle ball craig lauren wells or joyce barry david l bennett j scott vice christine susan boy rose elizabeth joseph francisco silly cheryl and chris michael jackson a and joy johnson deborah regina n john marshall no jennifer suzanne william james lackey junior more direct and mcclellan sorry i don't want to miss anyone here were you sandra nancy marie brian eat morn listen they're around john ok it's not there and i mean his general matthew robinson peter wilson rush kurt david schmid and collectively are notable and he deserved our recognition and praise it is a pleasure to welcome the old guard the class of nineteen thirty six members of the class of one nine hundred thirty six are familiar with the school of hard knocks having graduated during the time of the great depression only to have wor some of you may recall the oft quoted quote from babe ruth to president calvin coolidge on a warm day such as this so i'll limit my remarks to ahead to the next step in your life you will pass through an important part of the learning process if it is completely successful the main thing it has taught you is how much more there is to learn an american writer of the nineteenth century said something very wise on the subject his name was bayard taylor and what he said was this learned and to learn today is generally thought of as a vacation from learning a day of freedom for a book homework teacher if that is what you think there are some total of learning is books classes and homework and tests then you still have a lot to learn as a matter of fact human being if they are lucky keep wondering until the day they die they learn from what they read or what they see and what they hear and what they do the hope is that your schooling and  your teachers have been able to help you you know how to keep wanting learning for yourself every time you graduate you go on to a bigger world where there are more people to have more difficult jobs to do and more experiences you have and you have yet gone through one of the thing as graduations is that you are now ready to get more out of life when you learn to read a whole new world opens up when you learn to understand how lovely she works where a government works or why a plant thrives in the sunlight i don't worlds open up to you we already speak of people growing up we don't simply mean that they get taller we mean but they move higher in the world like climbing up mountains so you can see more and further you have climbed up about it was easier for some of you than for others but for all of you it is an accomplishment which your parents and friends of blood week evacuate you you have completed an important phase in your education use it well may please stand for the benediction and say standing for the recessional thank you state be with you among you now and forever