by David Scott Robertson
First of all, I am not, nor have I ever been, a valedictorian at anything academic. As a matter of fact, I botched typing the word "valedictorian" so bad that my spell checker had to come to my rescue.
However, my wife and I did go to my niece's high school graduation last evening and not only did we celebrate a remarkable family moment, but interestingly enough we got to hear several valedictorians give their speeches before the diplomas were distributed. I think it's a charming tradition.
I suppose school officials reason that it's a nice incentive to offer students who have earned a perfect grade point average the chance to get up in front of all their friends, family, and photographers and say something intelligent. Then again, given our general phobia to public speaking, it could act as a deterrent! How ironic! (Sort of like the student who hasn't missed a day of school in four years being absent to receive their perfect attendance plaque due to sickness!)
At any rate, the whole evening got me thinking about what I would have said to my graduating class (class of '78) had I been a valedictorian. I think it would have sounded something like this…
"Friends, faculty, family, and honored guests - it is a great privilege to stand before you this evening. I've been asked to address you, my graduating class, and leave you with some parting words of wisdom. But the truth of the matter is, like many of you, I just turned 18 years old, so what do I really know so profoundly wise that I can pass it on to you?
There is one piece of advice, my fellow graduates, that I want to send you into your future with and that is this: Choose your mentors well.
When choosing a mentor, don't look for the young man with perfect abs and runners' legs, seek out an old man with a pot belly and a limp. Ask him how he got the limp and how you can avoid getting one yourself.
Don't base your important life choices on the opinion of a young girl who has dyed her hair purple. I don't have a problem with purple hair, it's just that an older woman with gray hair is better. Ask a white-headed woman how she survived the Depression without losing her marriage.
Don't look for understanding and knowledge from the young man sporting a brand new tattoo on his chiseled bicep. Look for an arm with a sagging, faded tattoo surrounded by wrinkles and fat and ask the man attached to it for counsel.
Don't look with great expectation to the girl with her nose and belly button pierced for help in charting the course for your life. Look to the woman with an eight-inch scar on her belly that she got from delivering her stillborn baby C-section and ask her how she managed to live through and beyond her grief.
I challenge you, fellow graduates, to choose your mentors well. Consider the words of God, who invented wisdom who said that "wisdom is established in the presence of many counselors." And consider also in looking to Jesus Christ for guidance throughout your entire lifetime, for of Him it has been written that "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ."
My friends, quote the Bible and you will never be wrong. Live by it and your life will turn out all right. Learn from the mistakes of others. In choosing your mentors, look for not only those who have taken risks and failed, but look for those who have taken risks and failed forward, gaining something that you and I don't have yet as teenagers - experience.
My advice to you, graduating class of 1978, is my advice to my own self. Let us choose our mentors well so that one day we may grow and mature into mentors ourselves who will one day pass along the experience we have gained from our successes and failures to those who will follow our leadership.
Thank you, good night, God bless you, and God bless America!"
DSR
5/31/04