Norwalk Resident named St. Luke's Valedictorian

St. Luke’s School, an independent school in New Canaan CT, held its 86th Commencement Exercises June 5, 2015. Valedictorian Khushwant “Khush” Dhaliwal, of Norwalk, took the stage and delivered a message about true greatness:

“ Someone once told me that it is better to be great than to be good. I disagree. While I don’t know if there is inherent goodness in being great, I do believe that there is greatness in being good. There is greatness in kindness and in integrity. There is greatness in working hard. There is greatness in smiling brightly after you took a hard test. There is greatness in laughing the loudest when you had only four hours of sleep last night. There is greatness in staying after class when everyone has left to push in all the chairs and pick up scrap paper from the floor. There is greatness in loving your family, your friends, and sometimes even strangers. There is greatness in empathy. So, as your world becomes larger and expects more of you, I encourage you to define your own greatness, cliché as that may sound, and have some part of that greatness be goodness.”

St. Luke’s Head of School Mark Davis described Khush in this way: “Khush embodies what it means to be a scholar while embracing the purest meanings of friendship and community. Deeply kind and fully committed in all she does, she leads in and out of the classroom, not because she seeks leadership or the limelight but simply by the force of her towering example...As kind and devoted to her peers, family and community as she is dedicated to scholarship and intellectual inquiry, she earned our admiration for the person she is, not simply the academic superstar she was. Next fall, Yale will realize how lucky it is to have Khush. Just as important: so will her roommate.”