{"id":527,"date":"2013-09-16T13:45:01","date_gmt":"2013-09-16T17:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/?p=527"},"modified":"2013-09-16T13:48:10","modified_gmt":"2013-09-16T17:48:10","slug":"senior-breakfast-speech-by-maddy-stern-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/2013\/09\/16\/senior-breakfast-speech-by-maddy-stern-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Senior Breakfast Speech by Maddy Stern ’14"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: Senior Maddy Stern presented the following speech to her class on Sept. 8, 2013 during orientation.<\/em><\/p>\n

First off, congrats. We finally made it\u2014senior year. Every other grade on campus basically wants to be us right now. Simply by virtue of being seniors we are in a position to make a large impact on the school; people look up to us (physically and metaphorically). Some days it may not feel like what you do is important, but it is essential to remember that even if you only impact one person, you\u2019ve made a difference.<\/p>\n

Everything we\u2019ve come to love and will continue to love about Williston doesn\u2019t just happen, we make it happen. We paint the lion; we put embarrassing posters all over the school for people\u2019s birthdays; we throw the best dances; we are proctors, captains, tutors, artists, leaders\u2014but these are all just parts of a much larger whole. Just as you shouldn\u2019t make the mistake to categorize the people you will interact with, Williston isn\u2019t simply a label, or a shield. It is the sum of all our individual parts.<\/p>\n

Williston is dynamic and now it\u2019s our chance to shape it. But what we do this year won\u2019t just shape our memories of Williston, but how Williston remembers us. Now is the time to determine through leadership, class events, and our example how we will be remembered collectively. Already we are a class of amazing individuals; we have stars on the sports field and stage, leaders in the classroom and in clubs, world travelers, and people dedicated to making our own community a better place. I know I\u2019m proud to be part of a class like ours.<\/p>\n

But really think how do you want people to remember the class of 2014. How do you want the juniors, sophomores, freshmen, faculty to talk about us once were gone?<\/p>\n

We can spend our last Williston days dreading the common app, stressing about college, or letting senioritis take over. Or we can take initiative, come up with a cool senior project and follow through, plan an amazing dance, organize a holiday toy drive, sit with someone new at lunch, or connect with proctees.<\/p>\n

Once our time at Williston is over, we can\u2019t redo it. I know this sounds like the clich\u00e9 \u201cno regrets.\u201d But right now is the beginning of an end, our chance to enjoy everything we\u2019ve worked and waited for. Leaving high school isn\u2019t some obscure “someday” any more. It\u2019s our reality.<\/p>\n

With our attention fixed on the future, it can be hard to think about now. It\u2019s far easier to say that something doesn\u2019t matter when we won\u2019t be here next year to deal with rule changes, or different activities. But just because something doesn\u2019t personally affect us, doesn\u2019t mean it isn\u2019t important in defining Williston. We are in a position to advocate for the student body, to change things and set new traditions.<\/p>\n

For those of you who\u2019ve been here a while you know that right or wrong every class gets a label. What do you want ours to be? Now\u2019s the time to decide. We can be the class that was at every sports game, and play, the class that got stuff done, the class that knew how to have fun, and was kind\u2014to not just each other, but underclassmen and staff too\u2014a class that wasn\u2019t just amazing individually but collectively, a class with big ideas and a bigger success rate, the first class in Williston history to reach 100 percent giving to the annual fund, a class that knew how to work together. So that once were gone and people ask about us the response is immediate and positive with maybe just a touch of awe.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve got a year. Let\u2019s make it happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: Senior Maddy Stern presented the following speech to her class on Sept. 8, 2013 during orientation. First off, congrats. We finally made it\u2014senior year. Every other grade on campus basically wants to be us right now. Simply by virtue of being seniors we are in a position to make a large impact on … Continue reading Senior Breakfast Speech by Maddy Stern ’14<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[169,171],"class_list":["post-527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-student-speaker","tag-maddy-stern-14","tag-senior-speech"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":531,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions\/531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}