I think it’s best just to flag the speaker and let the mods deal with them.
Oh. Wait …
Our class valedictorian also did the toast at my wedding. He didn’t please everybody either time, but I was fine with both.
I sang in my high school’s chorus, so I attended graduation for four years straight. The first year, the valedictorian (who was also in the chorus) called out (not by name) the bullies who had apparently made her life miserable for years. She went on for quite a while, then just sat down when she ran out of breath. Quite a bit of uncomfortable shifting in the audience.
In my experience, the student speakers at graduation don’t tend to be chosen by the school. The valedictorian (and sometimes salutatorian) gets to speak. Sometimes it’s also the student body president–which is elected by the class, not the school.
That was me in high school…in my case, the motivation eventually came from a desire to have a higher GPA than certain other students. My parents encouraged this, but I don’t think they (or I) realized how ingrained this was until I went to college, where the adjustment from being successful at Picayune Jr/Sr High to being mediocre at one of the state’s top public universities hit pretty damn hard. I did graduate from college, and I’ve been financially successful, but the academic fallout has resulted in me being effectively stuck in my current job.
Thank you! The inspiration came from a friend of my father’s when I was looking for someone beyond the ‘traditional’ authors for my senior English project. This guy not only had an extensive library to offer, but he had lived in California during that era, and would eventually write his own book about those experiences.
At my son’s college graduation in 2008, the Valedictorian started out by thanking the school for the solid preparation she received to ready her for her internship. She then related her first experiences in the real world and how much she loved being an intern and getting real-world mentoring. Then she wrapped up by explaining that the company where she had interned, which had guaranteed her a job when she graduated and was able to work full-time, had suddenly folded because of the recession, so she was now officially unemployed and if anyone knew of any openings in her field, could they please talk to her after the ceremony.
Best damn speech I ever heard by anyone at any commencement.
Define “should”.
Younger folks may have a different view of what constitutes “speaking truth to power.” 
Quoting Richard Brautigan certainly rates higher in my book than the oft quoted Dr. Suess.
I was present at a graduation where the salutatorian went rogue. I don’t know what his original speech was supposed to be about, but he changed to a rambling, stage fright-afflicted sermon extolling the virtues of water and energy conservation.
Of course, I was seated in the faculty section with the other teachers. Stifled laughter roiled the section. One colleague accused me of putting him up to it, and despite extreme effort on my part, I let out a cackle that echoed in the stadium. I saw him about a week later. I guess he didn’t hear me because he didn’t seem angry towards me at all.
The things he said certainly had more value in the real world than the fluff the valedictorian mellifluously spouted. I’m sure the occasion was his first attempt at public speaking.
The worst valedictorian speech I sat through in 25 years of valedictorian speeches was the young woman who “went rogue” and told her classmates, “The reason I’m up here and you’re not is that I’m smarter than you. I worked harder.” It was a slap in the face to every student who’d slaved to be there and every proud parent in the audience. It still burns me up that the administration, sitting on the stage looking bored, did nothing to stop her.
The best valedictorian speech I sat through happened 10 years later, when the valedictorian told the class that many of them deserved to be up there instead of him because they’d had to overcome difficulties he’d never faced, that while he was home studying, some of them were earning money and learning things he hadn’t. It was a great speech, which is why it got approved.
There’s nothing laudatory about “going rogue” to get revenge against kids who didn’t give you the adulation you thought you deserved. The problem with “going rogue” is that there’s no one to tell you objectively that you’re making a huge and painful mistake.
Honestly, I don’t think anyone not chosen—or at least approved—by the graduating class should speak at a graduation, except perhaps as a sort of functionary (so, like, someone from the administration can introduce the speakers and call names to cross the stage). Nor should the valedictorian/salutatorian be appointed based on mere academic achievement.
If by chance one of the speakers should then go rogue, at least it would be someone a large number of the students actually wanted to listen too, not some rando chosen by the administration or a mere peer who happens to have performed well as a high school (or even college) student.
Do you mind mentioning what his book is called? I was alive during that era in California, but a little young.
I can’t find anything about this via Google. Is this perhaps a variation on it?
Warning: Snopes has become pop-up city.
My HS didn’t do student speeches, but then again, we had over 500 in our graduating classes, with multiple valedictorians (in short, everyone with a 4.0 GPA, in the days before weighted classes), and the city Enormodome hosted several graduations in one day, so time was limited anyway.
It’s Journey by Carter Monroe… Looks like Amazon still carries it.
Thanks!
I’ve been pondering the highlighted and I’m still puzzled.
Sure, going off topic might be a mistake, but I’m not quite grokking the “huge and painful” part. In the moment, for a brief time, sure, but I’ve yet to hear of someone’s life being altered or “ruined” long term due to what they did or didn’t say at their graduation.
I wasn’t a speaker at my graduation… actually we didn’t really have a graduation per se; they’re not really done here. Still, maybe it’s different in small towns, but I’m a city boy. I wasn’t going to see most of these people ever again after I was done with school, and none of them would have any more of an impact on my life. They were no longer of any consequence to me, so why waste my breath on “going rogue”? I’m not in love with the sound of my own voice.
I know it’s just some guy’s blog, but the cite a (no longer available) article from Springfield’s State Journal-Register about the story.
Here follows a letter to the editor about it, in another Springfield paper.
I don’t understand why the student with the highest GPA gets to speak. But my number one preference in graduation speeches is that they be short. Because if I’m there, I’m there to watch some kid walk across the stage and get handed a diploma. And I’m really not very interested in the rest of it.
I think i speak for a large fraction of the audience in these opinions.