The great Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “Do not go where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.”

Well, seniors, this is it, our chance to blaze a new trail. Our paths have joined, crossed, and sometimes even split. However, in the end, we all made it here, the pinnacle of our high school journey. As we step out of the high school doors, we enter a new world, a world of unfamiliar faces and exciting new challenges, a world where we shed the familiarity of high school and start from scratch.

From this point on, we have the choice to decide where we want our lives to go. We will build relationships and set the foundation for the rest of our lives.

My advice to everyone would be to love life and to remember the lessons and friendships that you gained here at Deer Park. This is really what graduation is all about – remembering the good times that we had and celebrating the many achievements of our class.

There sure have been some great times. Remember when Stacie and I were in your car, Pat, and the muffler fell off? You had the brilliant idea of tying it back on with shoelaces we found in the trunk. Or, there was the time when Amanda thought it would be a good idea to plug in the radio, in the dark, while she was dripping wet from being in the pool. I’m sure you can figure out what happened next.

Book smarts are important, but in the end it is not your grade-point average, how many clubs you joined, or how popular you were that will matter. It is the relationships and memories that we made along the way that we will take with us.

I would like to leave you today with a few final words of advice. Life is what you make of it, nothing less and nothing more. So make each day count, live life to the fullest, and I will see you again in 10 years.