Oceanside High School celebrate the past while looking to the future
While the June 22 rainstorms cooled the area after last week’s sweltering temperatures, they also forced Oceanside High School to move its graduation ceremony indoors. The school’s 109th commencement, held in its auditorium and divided into 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. sessions, opened with an unscheduled appearance by U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer.
“So the fact that you’ve gotten a great education, and the fact that you’re the first generation to sort of instinctively understand all this technology, means … that now is the time to start thinking of what your dream is,” Schumer told the 514 graduates. “Reach up — reach up high for it and see if you can achieve that dream. My advice to the class of 2012 is very simple: Go for it.”
Salutatorian Blake Smith continued the theme of looking to the future and offered the suggestion of finding balance in life. “Some people say carpe diem, Latin for seize the day, while others, like the avant-garde poet Drake, say the acronym YOLO, you only live once,” Smith said to laughter from the audience. “Look, I don’t know what we’re doing here on this planet, so we might as well live our lives with love and YOLO in mind. Maybe we’ll figure it out.”
Superintendent Dr. Herb Brown highlighted the education that graduates had received during their time in Oceanside, and mentioned that just the night before, he had attended an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., at which the Ocean-side Middle School was named one of the top middle schools in the nation.
“Good schools live democracy,” Brown said. “Others describe it. Good schools consider the arts as a basic need of the human person. Others consider the arts to be a high-caloric desert to be served only on special occasions, in limited portions.”
Brown concluded his remarks by saying, “And so from this community, where many of you were born, from this wonderful high school where you have learned, and from the friends, family and teachers who have touched your life, you will draw strength and courage and wisdom for the rest of your lives.”
