MONROE - Monroe High School graduates, dressed in crimson red and white robes and mortarboard caps, chattered in the lobby of the Monroe High School Performing Arts Center Sunday.
Standing in line ready for their turn in the processional, with tassels swishing, many graduates at the end of the line could not keep still.
"Oh, is my name in there?" asked one graduate, spying a commencement program.
"Well, of course it is," another answered. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be standing here. Hey, where's my name? ... Well, I want to see if they spelled it right."
The students want their names spelled right - for posterity. It's the end result of 12 years of schooling.
"This day has been coming ever since we entered this school," class secretary Flannery Steffens said in her welcome.
Steffens used the Butterfly Effect as a metaphor for the graduates' significance in the lives of their family, the school, the city of Monroe and beyond. The phrase refers to the small change effected by the flapping of a butterfly's wings, but which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations.
Steffens said students' past years together have contributed to the graduates' place in the world today. Their graduation day was "built on every step you took along the way."
"The things we have done ... have shaped our lives," she said. "We matter - our future is everyone's future. Don't stop beating your wings."
Todd Trampe, the school's speech teacher for 34 years, delivered the commencement address, which he called "the highlight of my teaching career."
Trampe outlined the graduates' lives as he taught them to do with their speeches in his class. The process was a natural one, he said, and advised the graduates to apply it to their lives.
"It's not all over. This (graduation) wraps up the composing of the introduction," he said.
The thesis of their lives is the goal or direction of ideas of "where your life is going when you walked in," he said. "It's not set in stone until the final delivery."
Trampe suggested the principles to live by from the Dalai Lama for the graduates to use in the main body of their lives. And at the conclusion, if they could "incorporate it back into your introduction," their goals will have been met, he said.
With a bit of humor, student speaker, David Parr, counted down the 16,046 hours the graduates had spent together through their 13 years of school, (counting kindergarten every other day).
What was dreaded in kindergarten - naptime - Parr said would have perhaps been appreciated a little more this last year in high school.
Parr reminisced about some historical events in the class's lives - Y2K, Pokemon cards, 9-11 and last winter's snowstorms.
Although "throughout this year many of us have been counting down" the days, Parr said, he advised graduates not to look at how much they have left, but how much they have done. He quoted Robert Frost's poem The Road Less Traveled.
"You will not be remembered for when you were born or for when you died. What you will be remembered for is that hyphen in between that represents your life," he said.
Standing in line ready for their turn in the processional, with tassels swishing, many graduates at the end of the line could not keep still.
"Oh, is my name in there?" asked one graduate, spying a commencement program.
"Well, of course it is," another answered. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be standing here. Hey, where's my name? ... Well, I want to see if they spelled it right."
The students want their names spelled right - for posterity. It's the end result of 12 years of schooling.
"This day has been coming ever since we entered this school," class secretary Flannery Steffens said in her welcome.
Steffens used the Butterfly Effect as a metaphor for the graduates' significance in the lives of their family, the school, the city of Monroe and beyond. The phrase refers to the small change effected by the flapping of a butterfly's wings, but which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations.
Steffens said students' past years together have contributed to the graduates' place in the world today. Their graduation day was "built on every step you took along the way."
"The things we have done ... have shaped our lives," she said. "We matter - our future is everyone's future. Don't stop beating your wings."
Todd Trampe, the school's speech teacher for 34 years, delivered the commencement address, which he called "the highlight of my teaching career."
Trampe outlined the graduates' lives as he taught them to do with their speeches in his class. The process was a natural one, he said, and advised the graduates to apply it to their lives.
"It's not all over. This (graduation) wraps up the composing of the introduction," he said.
The thesis of their lives is the goal or direction of ideas of "where your life is going when you walked in," he said. "It's not set in stone until the final delivery."
Trampe suggested the principles to live by from the Dalai Lama for the graduates to use in the main body of their lives. And at the conclusion, if they could "incorporate it back into your introduction," their goals will have been met, he said.
With a bit of humor, student speaker, David Parr, counted down the 16,046 hours the graduates had spent together through their 13 years of school, (counting kindergarten every other day).
What was dreaded in kindergarten - naptime - Parr said would have perhaps been appreciated a little more this last year in high school.
Parr reminisced about some historical events in the class's lives - Y2K, Pokemon cards, 9-11 and last winter's snowstorms.
Although "throughout this year many of us have been counting down" the days, Parr said, he advised graduates not to look at how much they have left, but how much they have done. He quoted Robert Frost's poem The Road Less Traveled.
"You will not be remembered for when you were born or for when you died. What you will be remembered for is that hyphen in between that represents your life," he said.