At my high school, the keynote speech at graduation was not given by the valedictorian, but rather is selected in a competition of interested seniors.
This is supposed to help assure a higher quality speech.
It failed.
The speech for my graduation was the most pedantic and cliche ridden piece of tripe. I tried to count the cliches and ran out of fingers in a minute and a half.
11 years later and I am still miffed.