Graduates urged to 'make things happen'

The Oak Park graduating Class of 2006 said goodbye to high school forever last week. A rambunctious audience used noisemakers and cheers loudly to greet the blackand-gold clad teenagers as they marched into the school's football stadium. Later, they applauded wildly as the grads were declared officially done with high school.

A brief pause in the excitement gave graduating seniors Samantha Gold and Lisa Veliz the opportunity to perform a stirring duet rendition of the national anthem. But the hush of the crowd was fleeting; even requests from Principal Lynn McCormack failed to stop friends and family from expressing their thrill.

Besides being the largest graduating class, McCormack also described the students as "the finest senior class that I believe we've ever had" during her opening remarks.

Haley Botwin, student body president, introduced the evening's student speakers and advised fellow graduates that "we are leaving so much behind but have so much to look forward to."

The student speakers included Victoria Lee-lang Wu, Brian Hunt and Kelly Black.

Wu, the school's academic decathlon team captain, avoided graduation clichs during her commencement address and instead encouraged her classmates to engage life with questions that are creative and bold and challenge conventional wisdom.

After informing the crowd that she was Chinese and therefore inclined to eat almost anything, Wu explained that her own love of octopus was made possible by a daring ancestor who asked, "Why can't I eat this?"

She also commented that the power to ask questions bestowed great power on figures such as Socrates, Darwin and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and urged her classmates to "eat something strange, and don't quit."

Hunt, an advanced peer counselor, focused his address on his class' remarkable ability to adapt to change. Over the course of their four years, members of the Class of 2006 had two different principals, four vice principals, new rules and a new version of the SAT. Despite the turbulence, the graduating class made incredible accomplishments in the classroom and on the field by embracing change.

Blake, the senior class president, reminded the graduating class of the pearls of wisdom that Oak Park High School was able to bestow both inside and outside the classroom. The high school experience gave her and the other graduates people skills, the desire to ask questions and a belief in their own abilities. Comparing the diploma to a ticket to change the world, Blake advised the Class of 2006 to "go out and make things happen."

Rob Hall, Oak Park's government teacher, presented Matthew Alexander and Kelsey Conner with the Outstanding Male and Female Graduate awards. Alexander will attend the Air Force Academy in the fall, and Conner will attend USC.

McCormack also warned parents of the changes that are bound to affect their lives now that their children are preparing to leave for college.

"Parents will now need to wait for their children to come to them for advice, they will no longer be able to share pearls of wisdom over the breakfast table," McCormack said.

She told the graduates that the university is a place to discover new passions and that the possibilities are limitless.

Seniors graduating from Oak Park Independent High School were also awarded their diplomas during the ceremony.

Families were invited onto the field after the ceremony for photos. The Class of 2006 left directly from the stadium to attend the Safe and Sober Grad Night sponsored by the parents of graduating seniors.