It’s the most wonderful time of the year. However it’s not Christmas that’s being counted down. It’s summer. The seniors are getting ready to start their college lives, and the administration is organizing the ceremony all of the relatives fly in to see: graduation. As is tradition, a few carefully selected seniors are picked to give speeches in front of their peers, teachers and family. With graduation rapidly approaching, seniors who will be giving speeches have been selected. Some are happy with the selections, some are not.

While Senior Class President Mamoon Syed did not have to worry about being selected to give a speech, is concerned about hitting the mark with the speech he has to write.

“Because the president is required to give a speech, I don’t need to have it ready for administration by the set audition time,” he said. “Still, it’s something that is incredibly important to me so I’d like to do my due diligence to get this right.” 

Syed says his speech will strike a balance between a serious speech and one more on the fun side.

While Joanna LaTorre and and Tess Peterson also were chosen to speak at graduation, Senior Class Vice President Juan Rodriguez was not.

“I’m outraged,” he said. “Nothing against the people who were picked because I’m sure their speeches were fantastic, but I wrote my speech a month in advance, unlike some who wrote it the day of. The speeches should take into account who represents the class, who people are going to remember, and what speeches will be memorable, but alas, the judges of the speeches just didn’t do that.”

Senior William Cosker also wrote a speech and was not chosen, but expressed different feelings than Rodriguez.

“Honestly, I don’t care that much,” he said. “My speech wasn’t fantastic, Keegan Schauman’s speech was great and he wasn’t picked either so that annoyed me the most.” 

Graduation will be held on May 19 at the King Center.
By Dylan O’Bryan