Return to Your Alma Mater

I am so thankful this group of people were willing to return to EHS. I hope each of them enjoyed their visit to EHS.

Looking at this list made me think, “What would I say to students of my alma mater if I were asked?” As far as I know, Cunningham High School does not have a career fair. So I imagine if I were to return to CHS, the only opportunity to address the students would be at graduation ceremony. So, what would I say?

Of course, I would start off by thanking people for the opportunity and congratulating the Class of 2018 on the great accomplishment of completing high school. I would not talk about graduation not being the end, but only the beginning. (Although this is true, it has been used for as long as I can remember.)

I think I would start by using the 1983 yearbook as a visual aid and possibly a projector if available. First, I might share my senior picture. Just to prove I did actually graduate. Next, I would share the pages for the school play, select choir and KAY to show that I was more than a jock.

I feel the meat of my address would be the unique opportunities of coming from a small school and small town. Although CHS may not be able to offer all the academic classes, activities and athletics of larger schools, I truly believe that my class of 16 graduates offered me some skills I would not have gained in a larger class.

I have worked in 4A & 5A schools for the last 20 years. In these schools, there are many groups, or cliques, if you will. Students are identified by what they do or don’t do. Depending on the schools, some of the groups may be: Jocks, Brains, Performers, Artists, and many others. At Cunningham high, we had the Class of ’83. We had to learn to get along or tolerate everyone. We knew we were going to be in the same English Class, the same Science class and every other class and event for four years.

I am not going to say we all did the same thing or we all liked each other all the time, but we did learn to accept each others strengths, weaknesses and differences.

Not only did we have to learn to get along, we had to learn to help each other out. I will share an example. I told you earlier that I was on the select choir page. I was not on this page because I could sing. I was on this page because someone was needed to fill an open spot when someone moved away. We knew that if everyone was not involved, chances for success were very limited.

The same was true for athletics. As most of you know, I am sports fan. I was a pretty good athlete in high school. In a small school, most of the time a small school might have two or three competitive athletes on a team. Schools that develop the student/athletes with limited skills or interest are the ones that become successful.

In conclusion, I would let the staff know that CHS did prepare me for life after high school both academically and socially.

Then depending on the crowd, I might start the old chant: Eighty-Three, Eighty, Eighty, Eighty, Eighty-Three.