Valedictorian Savannah Mabry, the senior with the highest grade point average of all graduates in the Habersham Central class of 2015, spoke to the graduation ceremony audience Friday night, generating a wide range of emotions from those who heard her.
To her graduating class, she announced, “We have finally made it!”and brought applause and cheers from the graduates seated on the football field at Raider Stadium. Both sides of the bleachers for the football field were packed with family and friends, many holding metallic balloon bouquets, stuffed animals, or floral bouquets for their favorite graduates. Mabry touched many people with her words.
She began with a parable of a student, much like a graduate of 2015, asking a Buddhist Zen Master how long it would take for the student to find Zen – a state of mind-and-body peace and satisfaction. The student asked how long it would take “if I work very hard and diligent?” The Master replied, “Ten years.”
The student then asked “but what if I work very hard and really apply myself to learn fast?” The Master replied, “Well, twenty years.”
“But if I really, really work hard at it? How long then?” The Master replied, “Thirty years.” The student did not understand.
The Master then explained that, when working hardest, the student would have only one eye on the goal. “You have only one eye on the path.”
Mabry then explained that many Habersham graduates may have had, during their school years, only one goal, one path – and they may have been guilty of focusing on the outcome, rather than the journey of life. Each graduate has had a “unique thirteen-year journey” she said. Graduates needed to remember those journeys, and being “guided down a pathway through the encouragement, support and love of those who care for us.”
Graduates needed to remember the families, friends, and faculty members who directed their paths through the relationships and accomplishments that led to “this bittersweet moment,” she added.
When Mabry paused to thank her own parents, “for loving me enough to adopt me as your own,” her tears began. “I love you dearly,” she said.
While composing herself to continue, she added that she did appreciate her also-adopted brother Sebastian. The two of them had argued, bickered and fought, she said. But without him, “life wouldn’t be nearly as interesting,” she laughed.
After graduation night, she said, “each of us must choose which paths to tread.” Graduates must “determine our own character” always keeping “our eyes on our path.”
Mabry concluded with words from her favorite poem, “Desiderata”:
“You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspiration, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.”
Then Mabry quipped to her audience of students, “In the words of Mr. Spock, may you live long and prosper!”
