By Bryar McQuair and Satoshi yano

Hello and welcome, ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, parents and guardians, family members, guests and other community members. Today’s ceremonies would not be possible if it weren’t for our parents and not only for the obvious reasons. Our parents and guardians have put countless hours into making this afternoon possible. They really deserve a round of applause for everything they have done for us over the years.

Today we stand before you because our peers elected us to give you a valedictory address. We think we were chosen mainly because we have spent the last give years talking while everyone else was learning, doing homework or studying. This must have given them the notion that we would be the most qualified and capable people to give this speech and put all the practice we have at speaking to some good use.

McQuair - High school was a lot of things for me, but out of all those things I’d have to say it was mainly a time to learn. Throughout all my time at NSS never a block went by that wasn’t met with a smile from a teacher, ready to go. All the teachers here were always so eager to teach me some valuable skills or give some needed information, even if it wasn’t academically related. I think that sometimes we forget just how much our teachers really did for us. Let’s have a round of applause for all the staff of Nakusp Secondary School.

Yano - I must say this is the most talented class of graduates I have ever had the honour to be a part of, well, the only class of graduates I will be a part of. We are such a tight knit group, we banded together and made sure we all made it to this point alive and in one piece. It is too bad that we have come to our cross roads after such a short time together. I seriously think that you are all in the presence of the future leaders of the entire human race.

McQuair - It seems like the future is coming at us like a freight train, but that’s why Ms. Clark has been hounding us to get prepared since grade 8 so that we can hop aboard that train and ride it out to whatever end we set our minds to, even if we have to bend the tracks to get there.

Yano - Coming of age ... I believe there’s more of a meaning to the definition than just the age and the rights of a person. I think that along with the age come new opportunities, new endeavors and new responsibilities. This very sudden change of pace is like a new, exciting and mysterious chapter for the rest of our lives.

McQuair - Walking the halls on the last day it was hard to process that it was just the end of high school. It was only the end of one chapter of our lives, setting us up for the real world. It’s hard to see that this has only been a small part, and that we have many more chapters to add to our stories. I think that the best years of our lives are still to come. There will be many challenges thrown at us, and we must take those challenges so that we can feel the rush of victory and accomplishment.

Yano - Life is like an album, or string of albums, and you’re the composer. Every lyric, every riff or melody, signifies a song to a different part of your life. With youth comes opportunities to write your own story. There can be many songs with very different genres, you can use different instruments, and you can even be part of an orchestra. A lot of kids our age don’t realize how good we have it to be as young as we are. Even though we are coming of age, we’re still entirely youthful. We can make countless mistakes and still recover ourselves by learning from and fixing them.

McQuair - We are leaving now, well most of us, to pursue a lifetime of achievements and to change the world we know, hopefully for the better. We are tomorrow’s doctors, lawyers, businessmen, trades people and teachers. So loved ones, don’t fret about parting ways all that much because the world would be a lot worse off without us. I’ll steal a quote from Woody Allen for my fellow grads. “We have just been given a perfect world, don’t screw it up.”

Yano - So, ladies, gentlemen, boys, girls, parents, guardians, family members, guests and other community members, it is coming to the dying end of our speech. We thank you for your outstanding audience-ship. And also I thank you for letting me imagine you all naked.

Here is to the graduating class of 2009!