Good afternoon, and thank you to my graduating class for giving me this great honor of representing our class of 2025. I’ve had many thoughts about how to start this speech, whether to go on and on about setting goals or discuss how you should believe in yourself. However, no such discussion felt quite right. Many sleepless nights followed where I tossed and turned until it struck me. Why not talk about something no one has before, a path no speaker has trekked, life throughout high school.
We as a class started at a bit of an awkward time in COVID. You know a casual normal experience where we just had a global pandemic underscoring our first year of high school. A time that feels so distant to talk about now, but could remove us from school for weeks at a time. Which I mean, having COVID, not fun memories, but missing a week of school, in the moment, was kinda exciting, a mini devastating vacation. A devastation that I had experienced in Spanish class during our preparations for our class spelling B. It was so fun talking to my classmate through zoom, the delay and my bad internet connection added to the whole experience. An experience that some of us can unfortunately relate to, slightly derailing what we wanted our picture perfect high school experience to be. On top of this strange time, in my first couple of months at lake region my friend group was fluctuating and I didn’t have a sense of who I was or who I wanted to be around. So when some weird kids popped up next to me asking me to eat a sour patch kid that may or may not have fallen on the floor and then those same people in cross country got me to run a 5k after which I ate four bags of cotton candy, I knew I found my people. With such a rocky start to high school we truly turned around a desperate situation to create and foster a sense of belonging.
This is what LR offers, community and friendship embedded in this school that on the first day felt like a scary future, prison. Throughout all of the past obstacles that fell in our path through High School, we prevailed. We overcame and forged a resilient community that offered camaraderie, humor, and much drama. We have been shaped by amazing friends and faculty here that have prepared and made us better for the future. From deciphering if what Willa and Heather told us is true, hearing about monkeys more often than you would think, and discussing crazy storylines with Charlie. To complaining about many assignments to Mrs. Pastel, discussing current events with Mrs. Suarez, or getting help from Mrs. Camara in writing our college essays, we have all experienced some sort of mentorship. The faculty in particular have aided us students more times than any of us can count with personal and academic problems. I wish I could take the time to account every moment along the way that teachers and students have helped me in some capacity but those are too numerous to say, and I’ve probably forgotten a majority, but they are nonetheless present in who I am today. In a year, in five, and even in ten, many of the experiences and tools we have garnered throughout our high school years will be used by us countless times in the future.
In our lives we will continue to encounter challenges and fail over and over again. But through that failure we will learn in strides and continue marching down our paths of life. We can only get so far if we give up at the slightest hint of resistance. That is what we have learned at LR, to not only survive and just do all right through life, but to thrive in overcoming opposition. A virtue that will be continuously needed in every moment moving forward. We’ve gained a confidence that can’t be shaken by outside factors, instilled in us through this school and the friends we had to see every, single, day, besides Covid. But, now is a time to celebrate, and though much has changed and more will continue to unravel in our future, we are on the other side of the tunnel with the freedom to make our own choices and work towards a better tomorrow. So as an apologetic theater kid, thank you to the rest of my class, the LR faculty, and thank you LR, as there is no place like here!
