We are all familiar with the William Shakespeare line, “All the world’s a stage.” There is a lot of truth to that metaphor, but tonight, I want to discuss another line from another age. In an episode of “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” Molly Ringwald’s character, Anne Juergens, says, “The whole world’s high school.”
Cliques, romances, best friends, allies, opponents – we learned about all of these through “on the job training” during our days at Mary Persons. Our teachers were our first level supervisors; the principal and vice principal our upper level management; the office administration and councilors were management staff.
Fortunately, we had the privilege of being students at Mary Persons High School – an outstanding high school, with excellent faculty, staff, and – most importantly – students. Then and now, Mary Persons has a well-deserved reputation for both academic and athletic excellence. What other high school could have possibly been a better training ground for that larger high school – the whole world – than Mary Persons?
Of course, our teachers were the most visible representatives of Mary Persons on a daily basis. We were blessed with some great teachers who were thoroughly knowledgeable of the subjects they taught and had the patience to explain the material so that every student could understand. We did not all have the same teachers, and I am sure that not all of us share the same opinions about those teachers, but I would like to mention a few of my favorites, those who taught me, inspired me, prepared me well for the larger high school that is the whole world.
Mr. Singleton inspired my passion for chemistry and physics. Mrs. Zellner and Coach Cook motivated my interest in history and political science. And Mr. Winters encouraged my love of literature and poetry. I will never forget how he taught us to interpret poetry, and in particular, that the theme of all 19th century American poetry is death.
Of course, Coach Pitts and his powerhouse football teams inspired the whole school, the whole community. The Mary Persons Bulldogs were – and are – a great source of pride for all of us who are so fortunate to be alumni.
But it was not just the great teachers who prepared us for that larger high school that is the whole world. Unfortunately, in the real world, we must deal with bad supervisors, incompetent bosses, and self-serving politicians. The bad teachers – fortunately, there were only a few of those – taught us to pick our battles, to “go along to get along” when that was the best strategy for our success.
While we were at Mary Persons, prayer was allowed at official school events; here in the Bible Belt, prayer was an integral part of any public gathering. Our graduation ceremony included two prayers: an invocation and a benediction. As plans were being made for our graduation, Mrs. McCosh asked me to give the invocation. I asked for the benediction instead, as I wanted to have the last word for the Mary Persons Class of ’74.
The faculty wanted to ensure that the graduation ceremony went smoothly, with everyone knowing what to say, when to say it, and said nothing controversial; therefore, the entire ceremony was scripted. While the speakers were allowed to write their speeches, this was done under close supervision of the teacher in charge, who had final approval authority. Mrs. McCosh wrote a nice, but long, prayer for me to deliver. Of course, being high school students, those of us with speaking roles chafed at having so little freedom in what we could say. Therefore, there was a longstanding tradition at Mary Persons graduation ceremonies that someone would rebel, would stray from the script and substitute another speech for the one that had been officially approved. After all, what could they do to us at that point? One year, supposedly all four of the speakers replaced their speeches with speeches they had written themselves.
As our graduation ceremony neared its conclusion, the faculty must have been very proud; everything had gone as planned, everyone had stayed on script. There was only my benediction left, and I’m sure they thought I was the least likely of all of us to rebel. I stepped up to the microphone, took off my cap, and said, “Let us pray.” Then, rather than reading the prayer that Mrs. McCosh had written, I said a short, simple prayer, since I wanted out class to go into the real world, that larger high school, blessed by a real prayer, not a speech written by our councilor.
I do not remember the entire benediction, but I recall I began by saying, “Father, this is the last time that we will be together.” Sadly, it was. I never saw some of our classmates again after that night. We never all gathered as a class after our graduation, and now, a number of our classmates are no longer with us. I would like to close with a moment of silence in memory of those that have gone before us.
Thank you.
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