Hoover's Farewell Speech

Family, friends, and educators, I would like to thank you all for your support in coming out today to commemorate the Hoover High School Class of 2015 commencement. However, your support today is not where the extent of our gratitude lies, it lies within each and every single day of hard work and motivation that you all put in for my classmates and for myself to be successful. You are the reason that we are able to walk across this stage, and I think it goes without saying that each and every one of them deserve a standing ovation.
Our four years were filled with happiness, sadness- excitement, drama- laughter, crying. This is a class that is without a doubt a special one to walk through the halls of Hoover, with students standing out in the classroom, in the community, and on the athletic courts and fields. It is one that has not only made its mark for the current student body at Hoover, but for ones to come as well. And once again, the successes of our high school careers come from our loved ones and those who were willing to push us at times when we just felt like giving up. It came from parents pushing us out of bed in the morning. It came from teachers pushing us to be the best we could be. It came from

friends that made being a Hoover Husky such an special thing.
Our past four years were certainly both the fastest and most prolonged years of our lives. Things like walking into Mrs. Davison’s advisory class for the first time freshman year to winning our first high school football game down in Ottumwa come to me as if they happened yesterday. But- as I’m sure many of my classmates will attest to, the last few months of this long haul seemed like they were never going to end. Nevertheless, we are here and have made it; and we have those here with us today to thank, which is exactly what we do. We thank you.
On the topic of gratitude, I would like to share the story of one of the young men graduating with us today and a personal friend, John Tombing.
John was born in Burma. As John was growing up, government turmoil caused his parents to want to pursue a move to America- the land of opportunity. This move would obviously prove to be the greatest challenge of both young John and his family’s life, as they financially could not afford to make the move possible. In the hopes of building funds for the trip, John’s family moved to Malaysia. He then spent a full year working 12 hour days for nothing more than $7 a day to help his parents save enough money to make the trip over. Continually being thankful for how far his family had gotten, John continued to pray for safety and success in his family’s great journey, which finally, in 2010, came true.
As John entered Meredith in eighth grade in 2010 in his first year of American schooling, he knew absolutely no English, struggling day to day with communication. But with the help of fellow students and hard-working teachers, by our sophomore year, John had become nearly fully integrated into not only the American culture, but the Hoover culture. The culture of being diverse and sharing that diversity- after all, America is the melting pot, and Hoover represents this better than any other school through its people and its opportunities. John often sat at lunch and went out to eat with native English speakers- he opened his horizons and people welcomed him with open arms. By junior year, John had made enough progress in his English to go from ELL to regular classes all while holding a job at KB Wireless to help his family have enough money for rent and food.
Up to this day, John cannot express his gratitude enough to god, his family, his teachers and his friends. John was not shy, and he saw no cliques and saw no differences in skin color and made lifelong friends, and these friends had the same point of view; they didn’t view John as someone different because of where he was from, they viewed him as a happy kid who knew how to have fun. John’s dream of building a successful life and family is beginning today as he walks across the stage and prepares for college next fall- and hopes to go into business and one day visit places like his native Burma to help people just like him.
John is the perfect example of what makes Hoover such an amazing place.

The backgrounds of the students- not only by home country, but by lifestyle, vary so much. And to think that this variety, often times extending to polar opposites, can produce friendship is an extremely special thing. This variety also comes in gratitude- you look at a student like John, who has worked and sacrificed years on end learning to speak one of the hardest languages and make ends meet just to get the freedom to live in America and attend school, and is thankful every day for the smallest things, and you have students like me, who were lucky enough to be born into the freedom and schooling, and are still thankful- but maybe sometimes take those types things for

granted.
Much like John, we all have something and someone to be grateful for, in many cases dozens of these somethings or someones. No matter our background, we all strive for the same success and have all had people that have given us the opportunities to make that success possible. After this milestone, we must continue to be grateful to the people who are making our futures possible. We will continue to take advantage of the opportunities we have been given to and through this point in our life and will make your time and effort more than worthwhile.
To Mrs. Flesch and all the administration, to our teachers, to our custodians and lunch ladies, to our coaches, to our classmates, to our families and family friends… we thank you. We thank you for the safe environment that we attended every day. We thank you for your hours away from your own families to help us learn the material, retake tests, and adjust to a completely new grading system. We thank you for everything you have done to make these past four years as enjoyable and successful as they were. We are taking a great leap in the game of life today, and we thank you all for making us walking across the stage a possibility, and for making our futures ahead of us an opportunity that we can now seize