Salutatorian’s speech

Jimmy Ragazino

Good evening to you all, and thank you for attending the graduation ceremony for Buford High School’s Class of 2022. To the Board of Education and our administration, thank you for making this event possible. To all of the teachers in attendance, thank you for guiding us through the arduous journey of reaching this very moment. You have inspired us, allowed us to learn, and furthered our growth in unfathomable ways. To the friends and family of all of the graduates, thank you for getting us to this point. School can be stressful more often than not, and your continued support has been crucial in overcoming all of our struggles and allowing us to reach this momentous occasion in our academic careers. Last but not least, to my fellow graduates: congratulations. We made it. After tonight, we’re done. Our academic experiences at Buford will be over, our clubs will be solely in the past, and our Buford accounts will be wiped clean. However, while our experiences within Buford City Schools will fade away from this material reality, the way we’ve used this pivotal time in our lives will live on within all of our minds.

As anyone who has experienced my anxious and stammering mind could probably guess, questions swirled in my mind in regards to this speech. Who am I to attempt to motivate or inspire anyone else? How will I slip in the elements that people have asked me to incorporate?

Most importantly, what will be the connective tissue that will aid in bringing high school to a close? On that last point, I began by thinking about the limited time that we all possess. Everyone’s time in a certain place or with a certain person is limited, and it is constantly ticking down to zero. However, you don’t need me to tell you that. No matter what our feelings are on the matter, all of us graduates are witnessing our time as students of Buford City Schools getting ever so close to zero, but even though our time here is nearly over, the memories formed here will live on. Even though we’ll never hear another one, we will always remember the infinite variations of the one minute warning. Even though we’ll never need to do another one, we will always remember the rigorous and occasionally strange assignments we’ve done throughout high school. Even though it will never again be recited to us, we will always remember the Mission of Buford High School by heart. Even though we’ll never work alongside them again, we will always remember the clubs and teams we have belonged to as well as the legacies we have left with them. Even though they are fleeting moments in our relatively vast lifespans, we will always remember instances like the experience of dissecting frogs and grasshoppers, “No Slushies,” and the sudden resurgence of Malthusian thought after the release of “Avengers: Endgame.” Our time here is almost up, but our memories at Buford will persist. As time carries us further and further away from this high school experience, we will still have these memories to look back on every so often. As we all move into our own unique and bright futures, we, as the Class of 2022, will be at least lightly intertwined through our shared memories within Buford City Schools, and, considering the terrifying world we currently live in, we are all very lucky to have had this experience together. Thank you, and I wish all of you the very best.

As time carries us further and further away from this high school experience, we will still have these memories to look back on every so often. As we all move into our own unique and bright futures, we, as the Class of 2022, will be at least lightly intertwined through our shared memories within Buford City Schools ...