News
2009 Valedictory Speech
The following speech was given by Jane McGraw during graduation:
"I know that I should probably get up here and make a joke about our time at Bolles that is both uproariously funny and says something insightful about the Bolles community. I know that I should then rhapsodize on the high quality of our Bolles education and how it will shape our future. All of these things are, have been, and will be important, and I truly appreciate and am deeply grateful for them, but I don’t want to talk about books and classes. Bolles has of course prepared us well for the coming years, has given us the skills we need to succeed in college, and I know that we will come to realize how blessed we are in this respect in the coming months and years, but that education is coming with us. What we leave behind today are the relationships we have formed, relationships which have been as much a part of our education as the books we have read, the labs we have completed, and the problems we’ve solved. Today we say goodbye, not to the education we take with us, but to the people we have known and loved and cherished.
Look back on yourself four years ago, when all of this was just beginning, when an impassable gulf separated us from the graduation we so looked forward to. No matter how distinct that memory is, that person you see no longer exists. We have changed- grown, I hope- so dramatically in these four years. This change has been gradual and sudden. It has happened overnight and over years. We cannot chart its progress, track its motions over time, but if we look, we cannot deny that it is there. We have changed through the people we have known, well or only barely. Our teachers, our friends, our acquaintances, everyone we’ve met or seen or experienced, all of these people and more have become an integral part of our lives in the past four years, in ways we probably cannot understand or appreciate just yet, if ever. We have learned from the people we have met more than we could ever learn from our textbooks, learned about life, about the nature of the world. The enthusiasm with which our teachers have taught us, the genuine interest they have taken in our lives beyond the classroom, the confidence and encouragement they have imparted to us, the people they are, have changed and shaped us radically.
For each other, we have become a family in so many ways in this time; being such a small school, it would have been hard not to. We’ve seen the end of a dress code and a canteen. We’ve fought through championships and concerts and opening nights together. We’ve stood by our schoolmates as we have lost those who are dear to us. Our own families have supported us along the way, have sacrificed to provide us with this education and these people, and now, we say goodbye to the most vital part of our high school experience, the people with whom we have shared our lives for so long. We part; we move on, ready to taste the world, eager to test our limits. We have hope for our futures, dreams of tomorrow, the promise of success in the air; we must move forward-we have to break free- it is thrilling, exciting, exhilarating, but don’t lose sight of where we have been. The names, the faces, the memories will fade, will be lost, but they are and always will be a part of us, however unconscious and indistinct. Take the time today to say goodbye to all those you have known or cherished, and don’t forget to say goodbye to yourself, as well. In a short while, who we are today, and who we have been for the past four years, will be no more. There is no going back; whatever our regrets may be, they are behind us. We will have the opportunity to begin again, to be someone new, someone apart from all of this, but even this new self will carry this ghost of today, just as you carry the shadow of four years ago now. Enjoy today, drink in these last moments, and realize that as we say goodbye, even though we may forget, a part of us will always remember."