Students Deliver Stirring Speeches

Three students gave stirring speeches to the Class of 2012 at Wednesday's 137th commencement ceremony at .

Salutatorian Jennifer Mears first enticed a flash-mob wave that set the tone for a metaphorical sermon that traced the fire - the energy - that spread throughout the class over the past four years.

"From first spark to final breath of smoke, that fire is something you should be proud of, something you have created, and something you will never forget," she said. "The smoke may dissipate into the night air, but the dancing flame that fought the breeze and warmed your fingers is burned into your mind forever. These are the times we will never forget."

She then challenged her classmates.

"Let's set out to ignite the sky," she said.

Chelsea McDonnell began her valedictory address with some confessions - that she cannot describe in detail every event in American history, that she might have put the word cymotrichous in her speech just to make herself look it up  (it is also making the Patch auto-correct crazy) and that she sometimes uses her fingers for multiplication.

But the quirks - the individual characteristics of each RHS senior - made the class go, she said.

"If I could stress one thing today, it would be this: Each of us is incredibly significant. Beneath the uniformity of our graduation robes, each of us unique," she said. "There's much more to our identities than just what we have established for ourselves in the last your years. In the future, each and every one of the students in our graduating class is going to be significant."

Student Council President Shannon Lipe talked about life as a numbers game and stressed how the Class of 2012 contributed to it in a positive way - like the 146 who donated blood at a drive this year.

"Every three gallons of blood meet the entire nation's blood needs for one minute, so one could say that Rockville High School supported the entire nation's blood needs for six minutes," she said.

Lipe continued, "We must remember never to lose our identity, but also remember there is strength in numbers. When you choose to join causes you feel passionate about, you do not become lost in the crowd."

Oh, McDonnell did point out that cymotrichous means, "having wavy hair."

The texts of the three speeches are attached.