Sean C. Morgan
Salutatorian Alex Olin told more than 160 classmates to embrace failure and all it has to offer as they embark on life after high school during the Sweet Home High School commencement ceremony Friday evening at Husky Field.
“As we read on and continue down our path, we need not to forget our past or where we intend to be in the future,” Olin said, using the metaphor of opening the next chapter in life. “Ideally, we’d all want a fairytale Disney-kind of book with lots of ups and few downs always ending in the words ‘ever after.’ But we know in reality the best seller books are full of not only ups but downs, times where you’re unsure of a happy ending and how to get to the next page.”
Graduation ceremonies were held in the open air, in unseasonably warm temperatures under clear skies Friday night. The conditions did not require the tents usually used to shelter district officials, faculty and other guests of honor.
The program included performances by the Chamber Choir and Symphonic Band, featuring graduating seniors, and words of wisdom from teacher/coaches Steve Thorpe and Dustin Nichol, and longtime metal shop teacher Al Grove, who is retiring.
Grove picked up on a theme that ran strong through the ceremony: serving others, in sharing the story of a man walking the beach at sunset seeing a boy picking up starfish and throwing them into the water again and again.
The starfish had all been washed onto shore, he told the man, and if he didn’t throw them back, they would die.
“But there are thousands of starfish on this beach,” the man told the boy. “You can’t possibly get to all of them. And don’t you realize this is probably happening on hundreds of beaches all up and down this coast. Don’t you see that you can’t possibly make a difference ?”
The boy bent down and picked up yet another starfish and threw it back into the ocean. With a smile, he replied, “I made a difference to that one.”
“As a mother, father, brother, sister, neighbor, co-worker, friend, boss, husband, wife or grandparent,” Grove said. “You can make a difference in this world, one person at a time.”
He gave the graduates one last assignment: to find the people who have made a difference in their lives and to tell them thank you – that night. If they were not at graduation, he wanted them to call or send a text or email, to tell them how they have made a difference in their lives.
Grove thanked those who made a difference in his life as a teacher for the past 31 years, among them, God; his parents and grandparents; administrators and School Board members; teachers and coworkers, especially mentors; his wife, Debbie; and children, Staci, Matthew and Mitchell.
Nichol, who teaches construction trades and is head football coach, along with advising the Forestry Club, shared seven pieces of advice he said he wished he had been given at his graduation in 1988:
n Set two alarms. The No. 1 reason people are fired is being late for a third time, he told the graduates.
n Create a plan for the next chapter in your life. Every day, his father would ask him what his plans were.
“Don’t let society decide what plan works best for you,” Nichol said. “You decide the best course of action.”
If learning a skill such as carpentry, operating equipment or automotive repair “is what you want to do, go for it.”
After he graduated from college, Nichol became an equipment operator in the timber industry. An opportunity to teach and coach became available, so he decided to try it.
“I now have the best of both worlds,” Nichol said. “I get to teach and coach for part of the year and during vacations, I get to operate equipment.”
n Define what success means to you. With a plan, each graduate should decide what they want to ultimately achieve. Whether obtaining a degree or learning a trade or skill, either career path is viable and can ultimately lead to the graduate’s definition of success.
n Choose mentors to gain industry and life skills.
“We all can learn a lot of technical, ethical and moral values from people that we hold dear in our lives,” Nichol said. “Growing up, I wished that I could have started out with half the knowledge that my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles possessed.”
He had the chance to work in the timber industry, and there he learned how to solve problems, prioritize tasks, operate equipment and put in a full day’s work. His mentors demonstrated the importance of faith, family and high standards.
He saw that demonstrated when his mother’s devotion did not waiver while she took care of her husband of 10 years when he became a partial quadriplegic at age 30, even while caring for her young children.
“Those years were difficult to say the least, but each day, she served as an example of faithfulness and joy,” Nichol said.
n Pick five to 10 whose opinions count.
“The more you put yourself out there, the more you open yourself up for criticism,” Nichol said. Today, everyone has an opinion about every situation, and they post them from behind a computer screen.
“Are you going to let those opinions rent space in your mind, or should you have a few people you can use as sounding boards to help you along in life?” Nichol asked. “I have 10 people that I hold value in their opinions of how I conduct my personal and professional life. Otherwise, everyone else’s opinion is background noise.”
n Say please and thank you whenever possible.
“Those three words may be the difference as to whether or not you get help in the future,” Nichol said.
n Did you make it pay?
His father would ask him that after Nichol came home from work or school. At first he thought he was only talking about money or quality of work.
Later he learned his father was asking whether he was honest, did he put forth his best effort, was he kind to others, did he help without being asked and did he represent himself and his family name in a positive manner.
“My advice to you seniors, make it pay,” Nichol said.
Thorpe, who teaches math and coaches wrestling and softball, held up a $100 bill and asked who would like it, generating a fairly unanimous reponse of raised hands from the graduates.
He then crumpled it up and then stomped on it.
“Any takers still want this $100 bill?” he asked. “Throughout your life there are going to be days, weeks, months or even years that you feel like this $100 bill looks. You may feel nice, new and fresh or you may feel like you have been stomped on, highs and lows, along with celebration and disappointments.”
Throughout the next few years, the decisions the graduates make will affect the rest of their lives, Thorpe said, including who they call friends, where they go to school, decisions made in the military.
“If something doesn’t work out, don’t blame someone when you don’t succeed or fall short,” Thorpe said. “Work harder. Don’t seek a short cut, lie or cheat to get what you want because what you get will not last. And when the opportunity to do the right thing is right in front of you, do the right thing, not because there is a reward or recognition or something to gain, but instead do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.”
Each graduate will have even greater moments than graduation in their futures, Thorpe said. It’ll be when the voice on the other end of the line says, “We would like to offer you a job.” It’ll be acceptance to a school or keys to a new house or car. Nothing will compare to the day they hear or say “I do” or when the doctor says, “It’s a girl,” or, “It’s a boy.”
“Good or bad, embrace it all because it is life,” Thorpe said. He told the students that God describes them as His masterpiece, His greatest work, in the book of Ephesians, in the Bible.
“So like the $100 bill, no matter what I have done to this money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value,” Thorpe said. “It is still worth $100. So whether dirty or clean, crumpled or perfectly crisp, you are still valued and priceless to those who love you. You are wanted and cherished. The opportunity is there, so do great things.
“As for this $100 bill. I lied. I am not giving you the money. There you go. A little disappointment. Get over it!”
Olin said her wish for her class is to keep the positive attitude it has possessed so far, so that even when its members fail, they still have the most fun and make the most memories, she said, urging her classmates to view obstacles as only a piece of sand and not the mountains they seem to be.
“Failure in life seems to be everyone’s number one fear, but without failure there is no starting over,” Olin said. “Without failure there is no critique, no fixing and no improving. The reward from a failure is perhaps life’s key attribute. If there was no failure there would be no success.
“Thomas Edison said, ‘I did not fail. I just found 10,000 ways that didn’t work first before I found the one that did.’”
Growing up, the members of the Class of 2015 failed at some point, she said. They all failed at tying their shoes. They all failed “to be cool” one time or lost a game.
“My goodness, we all know we failed when it came to May Week,” Olin said. “But as Truman Capote liked to say, ‘Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.’ As we move on, I want to remind you not to forget the failures you’ve overcome or the lessons you learned by failing.”
Valedictorian Sierrah Owen told her classmates to seek the rewards in serving other people.
“I used to be way more self-involved,” Owen said. “It was me, my grades, my homework, and I didn’t have time for anything else. I was stressed all the time. I developed nasty, nightly headaches. There were few days I felt happy. And this was just in sixth grade.”
She soon found herself in a meeting with her mother and teacher, who said that if she didn’t learn to slow down, she would burn out before she had even given herself a chance to get started. She needed to involve herself in things other than schoolwork, to join a club or sport. Her immediate response was to think, “Yeah, like I have time for that.”
But she piled it on like another homework assignment.
She joined some sports and clubs at the Junior High. She checked out a book about how to play basketball from the library and researched the “whole sports thing.” She tried out for the school play by asking for any role after missing auditions. She ended up narrator, and she was more involved.
“I was actually talking to other people as part of a group, and I realized I did in fact have time for things that weren’t school work,” Owen said. “It wasn’t until high school that I realized the importance of being involved in volunteer programs. Sure sports and clubs help you to make friends and learn team values, but your horizon is stuck within the school still. Through service I gained a better appreciation of my community.
“Now it is somewhat common to talk badly about our town. Usually, it’s all in good fun and, arguably, some of it’s true; but even words said in a joking manner can have a lasting impact, especially on children. It wasn’t until I got more involved in our community through Sportsman’s Holiday Court and Key Club that I saw how much work people do and how much they care.”
To borrow from her father’s salutatorian speech, she said that focusing on graduates and teachers is common at graduation, but really none of it would be possible without all the work done in the background by members of the community, Owen said. “I learned how to love and appreciate our town and the people in it.”
Her speech wasn’t just a story about her though, she said. It’s a call to action.
“Service doesn’t even have to be part of an organized group,” Owen said. “It can be as simple as visiting a sick friend, helping someone with chores or yard work or writing a letter. The goal is to make someone else feel loved and appreciated.
“Class of 2015, I challenge you to serve. You can’t always control your circumstances. You won’t always achieve your dreams. You can, however, control your own choices; and I would exhort you to choose to serve. Wherever you go after today, whatever circumstances you find yourself in, if you serve others, your life will be that much better.”