When US Weekly posed the question of “What is the quintessential American high school film?” to several thousand American high school graduates in 2009, the most frequent answers were The Breakfast Club, Dead Poet’s Society, Mean Girls, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which, oddly enough, doesn’t actually have that much high school in it. If you ask me, the quintessential American high school film isn’t even on that list, and it is the movie Finding Nemo.
For those of you that haven’t seen the movie Finding Nemo, I recommend that you first re-evaluate your life choices, and second, view the film immediately by whatever means necessary. Here’s the story: a young clownfish, Nemo, lives with his father, Marlin, a widower clownfish, in the ocean. Marlin, overprotective of his son, tries to bulwark Nemo from all the dangers of the big, blue sea, which, naturally, only inspires Nemo to break the rules, resulting in his capture by a scuba diver and imprisonment in a fish tank in a dentist’s office in Australia. Nemo learns a lot during his time in the tank from his fellow fish and he does some impressive things that help his friends and himself to grow. Keep Nemo in mind, as we will discuss him again in a few minutes.
Over the course of the past year, I have had the pleasure of waking Prairie Ridge up with the Pledge of Allegiance and morning announcements every day. Recently, a PR faculty member said that it would be weird not having me around to be the “voice of Prairie Ridge next year,” and that it was like I represented PR. And perhaps that’s true. However, just as my accomplishment of efficiently notifying everyone of food drives and spirit days has represented PR, so has every other accomplishment committed by this class over the past 4 years.
Marissa Barton represented PR by taking second place in state for swimming, a Prairie Ridge first.
Steven Biafore represented PR by taking first place in a Food Network-style cooking contest.
Imraan Alas represented PR by having that afro for a couple months.
Jordan Getzelman represented PR by being so committed to our athletic teams that he had an entire Northwest Herald article just about him injuring his leg.
Ana Botto represented PR by rocking an awesome toga on Senior Toga Day.
The PR Choir represented us by bringing a record-breaking 6 people to the All-State choirs this year.
Jack Billimack represented PR by superfanning an unbelievable number of home and away games.
Sam Paul represented PR by creating an AP Studio Art portfolio comprised entirely of paintings of the Hobbit.
Speaking of AP Tests, Nitesh Nath represented PR by taking a whopping 14 AP tests over the course of 3 years.
Zarik Khimani represented PR by starting his own actual pants company at the age of 18.
Eva Ramos, a PR foreign exchange student, has represented us by earning acceptance into a university industrial engineering program in her 2nd language.
When you look at very varied, but equally remarkable accomplishments of the students in front of you, it’s easy to see that, contrary to popular belief, Prairie Ridge is actually a pretty diverse place. I’ve only named a handful of the things we’ve done, but the list of our class’s accomplishments truly does go on and on. It is important that we remember what we have done here, as these accomplishments are the roots of those we will have in the future. Amy LePeilbet, a PR alumna from the class of 2000, and current Olympic gold-medalist and member of the United States national women’s soccer team, tweeted yesterday. The tweet read, “Good luck to the@PrairieRidgeHS girls soccer team! Play your hearts out tonight! Go Wolves!” This source of inspiration, this homage to Amy’s very strong roots, combined with the PR girls soccer team’s undeniable talent and hard work, lead to their first sectional championship since 2005 yesterday. Please, class of 2013, be like Amy LePeilbet– use your successes here as a springboard into future ones, but don’t be afraid to stop by to see the springboard every once in awhile or to wish it good luck; the springboards like getting to see you every now and again.
I am speaking, of course, of the truly incredible teachers and faculty that we have had the pleasure to learn from for the past four years. Our laundry list of accomplishments could not have been possible without the inspired instruction, careful guidance, and very necessary nudging along of our teachers. In the fish tank of Prairie Ridge High school, you have been our starfish. And our shrimp, and even that sort of scary black fish with the injured fin.
In my previous synopsis, I didn’t inform you, or remind you, as the case may be, of the ending of Finding Nemo. In his time in the fish tank, Nemo learns that if you are caught in a net, you need to swim down to apply the necessary pressure to free yourself, and at the end of the movie after he has been freed and reunited with his father, Nemo spots a school of fish trapped helplessly inside a net. It is then that the young clownfish translates what he learned in the tank, to the big ocean outside of it. He springs into action and, utilizing everything he was taught by the starfish and the shrimp, Nemo frees his fellow fish, saving their lives and bettering the world around him. Over the past four years, you have taught us all to swim down to free ourselves from the net– our parents, and our teachers. You have given us the knowledge, the confidence, and the care we needed to prepare us for the big ocean outside these walls. To every teacher and family member in the audience today, I thank you, for teaching us to swim down.
To every classmate in the audience today, I warn you. Things are about to get really hard. Yes, because college courses are so much more difficult than even the toughest classes we’ve faced here. Yes, because the military is more demanding than maybe any other task we’ve had to tackle. Yes, because the work force is a trying place, and is named that for a reason. Yes, all this is true, but the biggest challenge comes in having to say goodbye. Many of us are about to transition from being big fish in a 1700-student-wide pond, (or perhaps more appropriately, 1700-student-wide-tank), to being a tiny guppy swimming alone in an ocean. An ocean that is challenging, and foreign, and sometimes scary, but also beautiful, and home to hundreds of friendly fish that we have yet to even meet. And as comfortable as we are in our little plastic castles, it is time for us to find our own coral reefs, or maybe even make one if we don’t like the ones out there already. To everyone leaving Prairie Ridge High School this year, I thank you for all that you have given me, I wish you the best of luck, and I advise you to not always follow the current. Sometimes it is much more fortuitous to swim down.
