Eldridge tells Mayo graduates to remember who they are and where they came from
Mayo High School for Math, Science and Technology held their graduation ceremony June 6 at the Southeastern Institute for Manufacturing and Technology. Family and friends of the 75 graduates packed the conference room ready to celebrate the past twelve years of accomplishment and the start of their next chapter in life. Kayla Eldridge spoke to her classmates about making each decision in their lives count and remembering that everyone is created to be unique.
“Today is the day that we, Mayo Class of 2018, begin to write the end of this chapter in our lives. Today is the day that we pull our rafts to the shore of independence. Today is the day that we become high school graduates, a feat that to some of us, and maybe some parents, was just a dream…Great things don’t come easy. We see where we want to be in life and we all know we must work for it. If we don’t put in our work then our goals will forever be just that, a dream. But that is not what we were prepared to do. We were not prepared to chase our dreams for the rest of our lives. No, we were trained to succeed, to make those dreams our reality.
We have more visions to create. We have more lives to transform. Whether you are going to college, joining the service or staying at home to get yourself together, ya’ll, we have to work. If you didn’t take anything else from these past four years that we’ve been in high school…ya’ll know ‘hard work pays off.’…We want to be the greatest people we can be without losing ourselves along the way. In whatever you do, make sure you remember who you are and where you come from. Remember why you are doing what you are doing….We need to find and know ourselves, embrace ourselves, love ourselves, and live our life for ourselves; we can’t live our lives for other people. Life is too short for that and we work too hard for that… Backs were not broken for this moment for us to live someone else’s life. We did not come all this way for us to live in someone else’s shadow. That diploma has your name on it, inscribed in fine writing; a name ready to be heard by the world. As you pick up the pen to contemplate what you will be adding to the book of your life, remember that it is your life. Make that name mean something.”
Find photos from the Mayo Graduation here.
