Chatham Valedictorian Channels Lin-Manuel Miranda

CHATHAM, NJ - Chatham High School Valedictorian Brynn Chernosky has had a big year. She published her text-based interactive game, earned top academic honors and completed her internship on her way to continue her education at Brown.

But before she did that, she needed to give her speech at graduation.

Speaking about search engines, fallibility and the support staff at CHS, Chernosky detailed part of her journey to podium at Thursday's graduation ceremony. A transcript of her remarks is below.

"Like many of you, I went on internship five weeks ago, and thought it was the end of my high school career. I turned in all my homework, finished the last few math quizzes, submitted the last English essay, and I was like, wow. This is it. I’m done. Freedom!

And then I realized I had to write this speech. I low key considered practicing for my improv career instead of writing it, but my mom informed me that no one’s grandparents drove here to see my lackluster acting chops.

But if I’ve learnt anything in the past four years, it’s that there is only one thing that will never let you down. So I turned to Google, and looked up how to write a valedictory speech.

Now, it says I’m supposed to issue some inspirational, feel good life advice, but I’ve only been eighteen for a few weeks, so I don’t have too much of that.

It’d be nice to say that it’ll be easier from this moment on, and that we’ll all do amazing things and never have to deal with failure again.

Instead, here’s some actual advice: let’s accept that we’re going to mess up. We’re going to be making mistakes for the rest of our lives. So remember that you learn far more from failure than you learn from success, even if it’s hard to think that during conquer the hill week.

Speaking of conquer the hill, let’s all try not to do that again. That whole thing, where we have a month to go and we’re like eh it’s cool I’ll get it done and suddenly it’s an hour before the tournament and your car won’t fit in the box and you’re missing half of your rubber bands.

So I’d like us all to take a solemn vow that in the future we won't procrastinate. We don’t have to make that vow right now. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after, but we’ll get it done at some point.

In all seriousness, I know that leaving Chatham High School we all have big dreams in mind. Maybe you want to cure cancer, or invent the next iPhone, or achieve world peace. Our futures are limitless. But dreams don’t just happen from wanting them to happen. We have to work to make them come true. Unless someone here has a dream to create a digital assistant to make all of our dreams come true, in which case, please, go ahead.

Now, many of you may know one of this year’s bell award recipients, Mr. Kmiec. I’d like to share my favorite quote from him: 'Your job in life is to do what makes you happy.'

Life is both too long and too short to spend time doing things that don’t make you happy. It’s too long and too short not to chase your dreams.

So let’s accept we’ll make mistakes. And let’s make our dreams happen.

Let’s become president and go to the Olympics and win Nobel Prizes and reach for the stars. Let’s make the world a better place.

Now, on behalf of the class of 2019 I would like to issue a few thank yous. Firstly, thank you to all of the CHS custodial workers, cafeteria workers, secretaries, counselors, aides, traffic controllers, and administrators.

Thank you to our teachers, who never gave up on us despite having to put up with us forty hours a week.

Thank you to our families, who never gave up on us despite having to put up with us for eighteen years. They gave us endless support, and we thanked them for it by locking ourselves in our rooms and playing angsty music.

None of us got here entirely on our own. They say that you’re only the summation of the people you surround yourself with, and I think we’ve done a great job so far.

Because this is a formal speech, I’ll be ending with a quote by a famous leader. I know that there was a betting pool on if it was going to be Lincoln, or MLK, or Churchill, but I’m happy to tell you that all of you are wrong and we’re going with Lin Manuel Miranda.

'Every day has the potential to be the greatest day of your life.'

Let’s live like it."

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