Schools

Commencement Speech: Student Rachel Moore

The following is a transcript of the speech made by student Rachel Moore at the 2011 Minnetonka High School Graduation Ceremony.

Good evening everyone.

I’d like to say hello and welcome you all to our high school graduation. I know that several people have already done that, but I don’t think repetition makes the words “high school graduation” any less meaningful. Graduation has been on our minds for about 12 years now. There probably isn’t anything we’ve waited as long for or put as much hard work toward.

I had a preschool graduation. Did anyone else have that? Or maybe a 5th grade or middle school graduation? I remember getting my “diploma.” It was so cool. I also remember that from then on, “graduation” was added to the list of make believe games my younger sister and I played. We used to roll up pieces of printer paper with the word “CONGRADULASHUNS” written in it, like this (Show roll and words) and tie a little ribbon around it and voila! We would switch being the presenter and graduate of course. And we would practice our “graduated” smile. Mine looked something like this (stupid smile). That was probably 12, 13 years ago and I remember thinking that being 18 and graduation was so far away, it seemed like it would never be here. 12 years is forever when you’re 6, but now we sit here and graduation is in about... none minutes! We’re here. Yes. Actually, could you all do something for me, could all try to say yes like that and fist pump with your non-dominant hand? Like this? Its funny isn’t it? It’s funny because it’s so incredibly awkward, and a little uncomfortable. But maybe not as uncomfortable as entering a tight knit community like the one here at Minnetonka as a text book “new kid.”

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Some of you know that I’m not a native, some of you don’t, and others are looking at me like “she’s in our grade?” I moved to Minnesota from Kansas in October of my junior year, so I’m relatively new to many of you, leaving you thinking “she can’t talk to us about our entire public school lives, she didn’t even go here!” And you would be right, I can’t talk to you about our entire public school lives together. I can’t talk to you about your childhoods, I can’t make jokes about the elementary school teachers we shared, or grimace at the photos of what we looked like in middle school, although some things are better left unseen. In fact, at first glance, it would be safe to say that I don’t know a single one of you well enough to be up here attempting to be the last bit of formal peer communication you receive, but that is why first glances can often be deceiving. Although I have not grown up with you, I have grown up with you. I think that senior year is when we begin realize that “when I grow up” has become, “in the next 5 years.” We start to become who we want to be as adults and begin to make decisions that will shape the rest of our lives. I didn’t know you as childish eighth graders, confused freshman, angsty sophomores, and for a great many of you, anxious juniors. But I know you now as seniors-adults. I met you as you are now, who you’ve become and not what you were. I got to go to the games and participate in the traditions and rush through the current of everyday life with you as you are right now and it has been an unbelievable experience. Minnetonka students are some of the brightest, most ambitious, dedicated, and talented people I have ever encountered and that is so exciting to me- That there can be so many exceptional people in one room.

This story seems really personal and kind of irrelevant, seeing as so many of you were basically born together, or something close, but not next year. This fall, we’ll head to schools all over the country. All over the world actually, or to serve our country, or to take some time to see parts of the world we’ve only dreamed about, or to dive right into a career. We will meet people as they are. We will know nothing of their pasts, good or bad and our opinions of them will be based on whom they have chosen to be at this point in their lives. And the same goes for us. No one will care what you wore or how weird your hair looked in middle school. Never again will we find ourselves learning and working in the same general community of people for 13+ years at a time. The whole thing is kind of terrifying, but very freeing, and while it will be a result of our eminent separation, we will once again be unified by our common feeling of namelessness, and that of course, is up to us to change.

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Now, we wouldn’t even be at this little soiree if it were not for the army of adults that it takes to raise kids like us, and the adults in our lives here at Minnetonka, like the students, are among the most inspiring adults I have ever met when it comes to supporting their kids and students. Our parents have understood the need for a countless number of “mental health” days and sudden dental appointments. The teachers have understood that sometimes that math problem or essay just won’t be done by Wednesday. Together, they have supported us and have stood by, patiently, cheering us as we succeed and patting us on the back when we fail, and never giving up if, even if the latter outweighed the former every once in a while. So we thank you, moms, dads, siblings, other family members, we thank you teachers, coaches, administrators and paras. And Minnetonka Class of 2011, I want to thank you for being so incredibly awesome, and making these last two years so fantastic. It’s been wild.

So, CONGRADULASHUNS, Minnetonka High School Graduating class 2011. We did it. 

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To read a spotlight on Rachel Moore, click . 


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