Grace Graduates!

At long last, the valley’s last school to hold its graduation bid a fond farewell to its graduating class of 2024.

As the twenty-eight graduates filed into the Performing Arts Center to the processional, they were met by the cheers and encouragement of the small community that has been such a large part of their journey through Grace High School.  

After an invocation by Makala Clark, and the acknowledgement of accompanists Beth Buxton and Lisa Swensen, the audience heard from Salutatorian Koby Rindliskbaker.

Rindlisbaker welcomed those in attendance to the ceremony, and acknowledged that “today is a very big step in all of our lives.  A time when we’ll have to move on and start a new chapter.  For some of us, this new chapter looks like moving away to college, moving away to foreign countries, or even staying home and finding a new job.  Regardless of what we do, this moment marks a big change in all of our lives.  Everything we have done throughout all of school up to this point has prepared us for this big change.

We have learned time management, critical thinking, and many useful skills we will use throughout the rest of our lives.  All of the different aspects we have learned throughout school will help us throughout the rest of our lives.

Along with this big change many of us will feel fear—fear of moving away from our families, fear of choosing the right career, fear of finding new friends wherever we go.  Abraham Malcolm once said ‘one can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth.  Growth must be chosen again and again.  Fear must be overcome again and again.

Graduating is looked upon as an exciting time in our lives, a change in our lives, and a fearful moment.  We are going to be moving on and going out into the world on our own very soon.  Everything else we run into the rest of our lives will be full of excitement and fear.  If we let that fear win, we’ll forget about the excitement and let the fear stop us from trying new things.  We need to overcome our fears and find excitement so that we can continue to grow and progress throughout our lives. 

This class has been presented with many different times where change was inevitable.  We were forced to do online school and be separated from our friends due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.  That event has changed all of us.  But instead of letting that event separate us, I have seen this class grow because of that experience.  

Since that event, we have started to cherish the time we spend together as a class.  We have learned to use technology to benefit us and make learning better.  WE have even learned to make many different new hobbies because of the pandemic.

We have had many other experiences like this where we have grown and learned.  I hope you all will remember these times when you are faced with opposition.  Whenever you are experiencing something new, remember it is an opportunity to grow, not a time to give up and avoid the experience.  Although we have been through a lot so far, this step in our lives marks the beginning of many more obstacles and evens to come. The things we have learned and grown from up to this point are going to greatly help us with these obstacles.  I know that everybody in this class is capable of overcoming obstacles, facing fears, and growing because I’ve seen each of us do it.

Michael Jordan once said ‘obstacles don’t have to stop you.  If you run into a wall, don’t give up.  Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.’  The class of 2024 has proved that we’re able to work around obstacles and learn and grow to become better as a result of them.  We all have the ability to make our lives what ever we want them to be if we persevere and don’t let fear stop us.

I wish you all the best, and I hope you will be able to use all you’ve learned to make your futures brighter.” 

Nathaniel Smith, Valedictorian, next addressed the crowd, providing his own words of celebration and reflection.  Smith also welcomed the audience to the ceremony, including “anyone who doesn’t really want to be here.”  “Most of you are probably expecting me to give a long boring speech about how awesome school is, and why I should take calculus and all the hard classes, but I won’t do that for a few reasons.  One—school is great and all, but it’s not the funnest thing in the world.  Two—hard classes are good to take, but you need to have a little fun in high school.  And three—I don’t want to put any of you to sleep.

A famous quote by Winston Churchill explains perfectly how a speech should go—‘a speech should be like a woman’s skirt, long enough to cover the basics, but short enough to maintain your attention.’  Hopefully you can all learn something from my speech.

What is time?  There are a few answers to this.  One is that time is a measure of how long something takes.  There’s a complex answer…time is a continued sequence of events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past to the present, and into the future.  Both of these statements are true, but only partially.  What is time truly?  There is no simple answer.  Time is the one thing in our lives that never stops.  Opportunities come and go, events pass on, but time we are given without cost.  Harvey McKay said, ‘time is free, but it is priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it.  You can’t keep it, but you can send it.  Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back.

Do we use our time or waste it?  Everyone is trying to save time these days with online shopping, fast food, and instant messaging.  But is it truly saving us time?  I know that most people hate math, but I have a little math problem for you.  If a person spends one hour a day on their phone for an entire year, how many twelve hour days will that be?  It’s 30 days—one month of your year spent on your phone at only an hour a day.  Think of all the things you could do in a month.  All that time gone, wasted.

What can we do to use our time well?  One thing we can do is spend time doing the things you love with the people you love.  Jonathan Estren stated ‘the way we spend our time defines who we are.’  When we spend our time with people we love, such as our family and friends, we create lasting relationships.  When someone dies, no one cares if they made a hundred k a year or had a big mansion—they care about the friends they made, and how they treated others.

We need to spend time wisely, for we don’t know how long we have.  No one knows how long they are here.  We may live to be a hundred, and we may die tomorrow.  Each day is precious, and we should take full advantage of each day and use it to the fullest.  When opportunities come, take them.  There’s a country song many of you probably know.  It’s called “Til You Can” by Cody Johnson.  It goes ‘If you’ve got a chance, take it.  If you’ve got a dream, chase it, because the dream won’t chase you back.  If you’re going to love somebody, hold them as long and as strong til you can.”

Take that hard class in high school because you might never have the chance again.  Laugh and have fun.  Take some fun classes too and have fun on your journey.  School doesn’t have to be serious all the time.  Look at our class—we had tons of fun and we’re still graduating.

Don’t be afraid to take chances.  Ask that girl out.  Try that new sport.  Apply to that job you want.  If you never take a chance, you’ll never know where that chance will take you.  I don’t want to waste any more of your time, so I’ll wrap this up.  Time is valuable, use your time wisely. Take each day one day at a time.  A wise old turtle named Master Ugway once said, ‘yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but tomorrow is a gift—that’s why it’s called the present.’  Learn from the past because you can’t change what already happened.  We have no control over what happens in the future, so don’t stress over it.  Today is the day that matters.  Take the chance and learn all you can.  Look out world, because here comes the class of 2024!”

Class President Alex Olsen then spoke.  “For all you who don’t know me, I like movies.  And the movie is a Knight’s Tale.  The movie’s premise is you can change your stars.  You can pick your future.  If there’s any class that can do that it’s this one—we’ve literally changed the stars just because we felt like it.

Going to high school, I’ve learned a lot.  And one of the things I’ve learned is that you can’t make a claim without giving an example, so here are some examples of how we’ve changed the stars.  First, we’ve changed the teachers—we have a lot of different teachers throughout high school.  We’ve changed our surroundings, including the ceiling.  Lastly, we had a very excited classmate change the shape of people while singing happy birthday.  

There are many examples, however, just like high school that is now behind us and we must go into the future.  Yes, we will worry about our futures, but if there’s any group of people who will go into the world and change it, I would bet my last dollar on these young men and women.  To my fellow classmates, go out there and change the world.  We have been told that not everywhere is like Grace.  While this is true, I hope you bring the same energy you brought here to the rest of the world.  So whether you go to college, or vocational school, or to work, you will always be a senior from Grace High school. There’s an old quote that is simple that says ‘your surroundings have shaped you into who you are today.’  I think this class is a good example of that.”  Olsen explained that the class had originally had more than fifty students, and that even some were only in each others lives for a short time, they had all shaped each others’ lives in the time they’d had together.

“The twenty-eight students sitting on stage are here for a reason, and I’m happy to be graduating with them,” Olsen said, before moving on to introduce the guest speaker, Kirsten Burrell, who “just so happens to be one of the only people who has ever loved us other than our mother—which was optional.  One of the most amazing people to ever grace the green earth.  She has the heart of a saint, and has single handedly made the fewest death threats to any of us students!” 

Burrell gave a moving presentation, after explaining that she had only been at Grace for a couple of years, having found her way to the school when “she needed it and it needed her.”  She used her time to present things she and other teachers had overheard the graduating seniors say in their classes, adding a very personalized sense of the characters of the students on stage.  She had each of them rise in turn as she presented them with a “gift” of a trait that she thought was suited to them, including things such as “humor,” “love,” “loyalty,” and so on.  The messages were well-chosen and clearly impacted the individual students under her care.

Following the presentation of diplomas, a hilarious song written and accompanied by Carrie Yost and commenting on the small miracles that fill our lives, including the graduation of the self-same students, titled “It’s a Miracle” was performed by the Serendipity Seniors. 

After the recessional, the students retreated to the gym where the met with friends, family, and excited members of the community who gathered to wish them well on their continued
adventures.  

The graduating class of Grace High School included: Bailee Andersen*, Brinlee Andersen**, Lydia Andersen***, Alexis Bitton***, Kale Burrell*, Jody Carpenter***, Jacie Christensen***, Jospeh Clegg, Kai Clegg, Wyatt Cutler, Madison Edwards, Cora Harris, Macaden Haslam, Cayson Higley*, Wylie Johson, Rayff Jorgensen, Easton Lloyd**, Jack Mussler, Alexander Olsen, Koby Rindlisbaker***, Anika Smith***, Nathaniel Smith***, Sydnee Smith***, Brennon Sorenson***, Melodie Straatman**, Lorrin Tingey, Tayler Yost**, Shadrick Zulu**.

***High Honors

**Honors

*Honorable Mention

The senior class officers for 2023-2024 were President Alex Olsen, Vice President Cayson Higley, Secretary Anika Smith, and Reporter Kale Burrell.