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Congratulations, Class of 2004
As the Rev. Paul Christy told Monday night’s Smoky Mountain High Schoolgraduates, earning a high school diploma is not an ending but rather a milestone to help them chart the course their lives will take.
And what a future is spread before the Class of 2004: Unparalleled technological potential coupled with global unrest linked to terrorist threats and war. Unlike their parents, they have come of age with computers – they’ve been instant messaging and e-mailing since grade school.
Student Council President Tyler Melton described his class as “survivors,” saying they had made it through both major campus construction and renovations and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.
This class has also made it through year after year of state-mandated testing as ever-increasing requirements came down from Raleigh with regard to North Carolina’s ABC accountability program and from Washington under the newer No Child Left Behind initiative.
We’re proud of this group. Like the classes before them, they have represented their school and community well, both academically and scholastically. Several have received athletic scholarships to colleges and universities, and Principal Alex Bell announced Monday that the Class of 2004 as a whole has garnered scholarship money in excess of $400,000.
Reverend Christy was correct in terming the event a milestone. The graduates feel so grown up now, but they will look back one day and realize that their high school commencement was exactly that – an event that marked the beginning of their adult lives.
Congratulations, graduates. We’re proud of you.
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