Principal Salutes Class for 'Love of Humanity'

Note: Several commencement speeches were delivered Thursday by members of the Ledyard High School Class of 2011. When they were done, Principal Lou Gabordi stepped up to the lectern and used this final opportunity to teach. Gabordi's moving address is presented below in its entirety. 

Good evening, everyone.

Before I get into the text of my speech, I want to take a moment to thank all of you who have traveled a great distance to join us today.  Different areas of our country are well represented this evening, whether here in the gymnasium or watching from our cafeteria.  Thanks so much. 

A special thank you goes to the our elected officials among us, the mayor, town councilors and members of our board of education; your participation helps us emphasize that tonight is indeed a celebration for all of Ledyard Public Schools, as it is for all thirteen of the towns which send students to our agricultural sciences and technology program.

As most people here know, tonight’s graduation is even more significant than usual for me.  Quite honestly, I have enjoyed a close relationship with nearly every graduating class during my 36 years with Ledyard Public Schools but, as you heard referenced in the speeches of our Ledyard Scholars, secondary school principals rarely have the opportunity to work with their students as long as you and I have been together. 

Tonight’s speech should have been easy for me to write.  But, as I told you at graduation rehearsal, that has simply not been the case.  I even asked several of you for suggestions as to what my theme should be.  You were exceptionally helpful, offering ideas ranging from “sum it all up” to “just tell a few jokes” -- suggesting a speech which combines “it’s been great” with “a man walks into a restaurant with a duck on his head.” 

The most intriguing suggestion was, “Write a speech about Jonathan Schilke,” and it wasn’t even Jonathan’s idea.  Jonathan, I think I’ll save that topic for when I wish to be especially impressive.

Finally, after a great deal of reflection, two understandings emerged.  The first was that if I hadn’t taken the opportunity in our six years together to say everything I have to say to you, I may have forfeited the right to hold everyone on a muggy summer night to do so.  Let’s see, I’ve had honors assemblies, RISE awards, Gettysburg meetings, promotion ceremonies, freshman orientation, CAPT assemblies, pep rallies, two proms, FFA conventions, awards nights, National Honor Society inductions, graduation rehearsals, and a thousand discussions in hallways, classrooms, and cafeterias, to name just a few opportunities. 

Secondly, and probably much more on point, is the fact that principals’ commencement addresses have a sense of finality, of saying goodbye about them.  And I must admit that that feels out of the question.  So allow me to offer just a couple of brief points.

I am not the type of person who believes in telling students that they are the only hope for the future or that they are the best young people in the world.  Such comments go over very well at graduations, but I find them a bit dismissive of others and generally bad for your sense of your place in the world.  But I will tell that I feel capable of ably defending the idea that there is no one better than you, no one, and that any adults who despair over the future of our country need only pay attention to this group of young men and women for the antidote. 

The Ledyard High School class of 2011 has known great successes in the full range of high school activities -- athletics, music, robotics, the visual arts, agriculture -- and learned from failures.  Your love of humanity is particularly striking to me.  It has manifested itself in such things as saving lives through blood drives and freeing African children from some of the horrors of civil war.  Your contributions to your community and to the world have been especially impressive to me because they were done with such commitment and joy that your sacrifices for the common good don’t seem to feel like sacrifices at all to you.  What a fabulous lesson for all of us. 

I wish what I’ve described had been the totality of your experience, but such things are not for us to decide. So when your young hearts were broken by tragedy, and your grief lay just beyond the reach of the adults who would have done anything to help, we watched in amazement as you came together to take care of one another, and you were beautiful as you did so. 

There are those for whom such loss would have resulted in cynicism, the belief that the world could not really be what we had dreamed, but not you.  You turned your sorrow into action to a degree I have never before witnessed in a group as large and as young as yours.  I hope you never forget what you learned about yourselves in the process, and the lessons you provided one another on the resilience and capacity of the human spirit.

Our relationship began like a cheap mystery novel which begins with, “It was a dark and stormy night,” though when we met it was morning.   My first words to most of you, as you entered Ledyard Middle School on day one of seventh grade were,  “Good morning, I’m you’re new principal, Mr. Gabordi.  Please head straight back to the gym; I’m sure the power will come on shortly.” 

And here we are today, as I make my last comments to you as a group, on just such a day and stormy night.  I hope that what has happened in the intervening time has been wonderful and that the next six years are more so, and the six after that as well.  Life is, and always will be, about what happens next.  My parting wish for you is that the excitement inherent in that statement is with you always throughout long and happy lives.