Schools

Class of 2012 Graduation: Welcoming Address

Jared Gardiner gave the welcoming address at the Melrose High School graduation ceremonies on Friday night.

The following is the text of Jared Gardiner's welcoming address at the Melrose High School Class of 2012 graduation ceremonies on Friday night.

Melrose High School class of 2012, congratulations and welcome. As the President of your class, it is an honor to be here tonight graduating with all of you.

I am sure the vast majority of us here tonight are thrilled to move on with our lives and pursue what the future holds. I am also sure that many of us will miss the four years, we survived here together at Melrose High School. Today, we say good bye. We say good bye to a lifestyle we lived for thirteen years and we welcome the opportunities our future. We say good bye to Dr. Peterson’s three sided classroom that many of you know far too well. We say good bye to our shoe box lockers and our twenty minute lunches. With these goodbyes we leave behind so much: Mrs. Steriti telling us to take our “malfunctioning mouths” somewhere else, dealing with fighting for spots across the street in the knoll. The most important good bye we will say is to each other and the past we created as a class. At the end of the day, good or bad, we stuck together and made our point clear. Everything we did, we did it big. And if we couldn’t, well, at the end of the day we always had Devin Murphy to make us look big.

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Today, not only does this class graduate, but we also leave behind significant talents. Cam Locke could pass the bar tomorrow if he wants and Cole O’Brien can paint our logo better than anyone to ever come through this school. If you need something to start trending, talk to Fanikos, he gave CJ Leach or should I say “Kow,” a new identity at age fifteen. Ladies, stay on Katie Laqualia’s good side. Her portraits can make the shading on your upper lip a lot clearer than it was in the morning when you checked the mirror. Brickley does things with numbers that none of us knew possible. And of course DeSimone has created chants at sporting events that we thought he pulled from movies. We are later shocked to find his creativity is constantly expanding and he actually made them up. The skills and talents that once roamed these halls will be set out into this world, and I am confident they will be put to good use.

The lessons we take from our experiences at Melrose High School are never ending. Day in and day out we learn things like how to interpret and reflect on literature, how to identify every bone in the human body, and of course what we can and cannot put on Facebook. We were surrounded by preparation for our future in order for us all to succeed. Now we are faced with the challenge of moving on into a world in which problem solving is in high demand. To be perfectly honest, I couldn’t think of a  better group of people to fill that demand. There would be fewer problems in this world if we two hundred and sixty eight people were in charge. I am a firm believer in that.

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Tonight, there are thirteen members of this class who made our experiences here so special. They are your student government. Their hard work deserves recognition because every single one of them contributed in one way or another. The hours of their time that they spent making sure your class events ran the way they should, is unimaginable for many us. Their reward? The satisfaction of seeing their classmates smile when they are pleased with something we have done. Every Wednesday of our high school career these students showed up early for school to make the gears turn and make our class events possible. We thank these students for making us one of the most financially well off classes to go through this high school. And of course, we cannot forget our advisors. The past couple weeks they have been in this school until 5:30 each and every day. Let’s not even get started on their reward. Your hard work is appreciated.

I would like to conclude with expressing my personal thanks to the people who have traveled this four year endeavor with me.  Of course my loudest shout out goes out to my boys couldn’t have done it without you guys, we really know how to keep it a buck. I cannot forget the Horace Mann clan, you guys are the best. Thank you to my family for their never ending support, especially my mother and my Aunty Jo, they are always willing to take some weight off my shoulders. I appreciate the support and friendship that Emily Conn has provided for the first thirteen years of my student career. Her work ethic and attitude are the most fair and just of  anyone I know and she has clearly expressed that in our work thus far, thank you Emily. Mr. Celli, you changed how I view life and I will always use you as a model for my future and I hope to one day know as much about sports as you do. My friend Babs reminded me before this ceremony to thank God for bringing us all together today to enjoy this celebration, it is a true reminder of how phenomenal these four years have been. My last thanks goes out to the one person who has impacted my life in the most significant way possible. Miss Gintner, I would not be standing up here today if it was not for your endless support. You kept me in line but you also always kept me laughing and I will never forget the hard work you put in to making my high school career the most it could ever be. I will miss escorting you down the hallway to make sure no one messes with you or stealing all your food in your stash. LG, thank you.

Class of 2012, you will always hold a place in my life and I will never forget the memories we created here together. Congratulations and good luck.


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