‘Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly’

Graduating class bids farewell to John Hogan

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One hundred ninety-eight students in West Hempstead High School’s class of 2016 graduated last Sunday at the Tilles Center at LIU Post.

The ceremony was both jubilant and bittersweet, as it was Superintendent John Hogan’s last year with the school district. Hogan, who will retire on Friday after a 38-year career in education, gave an off-the-cuff speech, because he wanted to speak from the heart and focus on some of the most important things he has said over years — expressing appreciation for the graduates’ parents, and highlighting not only the students’ admirable academic success but their charity, expressed through their food and clothing drives.

Hogan added that the most important thing in life isn’t the accumulation of wealth, but what we do for one another. “When all is said and done, that’s most important,” he said. He also quoted John Adams, who is believed to have told his granddaughter that the more he read, studied and thought, the less he seemed to know, and that she should do justly, love mercy and walk humbly — and that would be enough. He also quoted Ronald Reagan, who said, “Enjoy life, because it is ungrateful not to.”

Then Hogan presented Maheen Khan and Gabriel Berkowitz, the graduating class’s valedictorian and salutatorian, who offered their remarks.

The class received more than three dozen community and scholarship awards, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarship money offered by colleges and universities.