Saturday, June 20, 2020 | The Newnan Times-Herald — 1C
Trinity Christian School
Student honors 2020
• Photos of scholarship recipients • Photos of 2020 honors graduates • A letter to seniors from head of school
Trinity Christian School Student Honors 2020 Published by The Newnan Times-Herald Saturday, June 20, 2020
Photos courtesy Trinity Christian School and Laurel Huster Honors night photos are available for purchase online at photos.times-herald.com
Trinity Christian School’s Valedictorian Morgan Ross, left, and Salutatorian John Geter.
Trinity Christian School Valedictorian Speech BY MORGAN ROSS
Good evening friends and family, teachers and faculty, and most of all, the graduates of the Class of 2020. It is an honor to be speaking to you on such a momentous occasion. TS Elliot opens his Four Quartets with the line “in my beginning is my end.” I believe that is what we are here to celebrate today the beginning of a new chapter at the end of an old. On behalf of the Class of 2020, I would like to begin by extending a heartfelt thanks to those who supported us throughout our high school years. To our family and friends, our mentors, teachers, and the faculty of TCS, thank you. Issac Newton once said, “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.” Thank you for being the giants on whose shoulders we stand, encouraging us and empowering us to reach beyond the former concepts of our capabilities, and to strive for our best in everything we do. I pray that we may never lose the guidance and wisdom you all have bestowed upon us, and that when we encounter hardships in our lives, we may look back on everything we have learned from those who truly cared. To those who supported the Class of 2020, thank you. Above all, let us extend great thanks and praise to the LORD our God who brought us all here together, one last time, to celebrate the great works He has done in us and through us over the last four years. Somewhere along the line, the LORD brought us all to Trinity Christian School, a place where we could not only learn a plethora of facts and figures, but a place where we could grow in our faith in Him. I thought long and hard about what I would say to all of you today, what wisdom I, a not even yet graduated 18 year old, could bestow upon you, my fellow peers. Turning to the LORD, He placed one word upon my heart - courage. CS Lewis once said, “Courage is not
simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” Taking into consideration the current events of the world, courage is in high demand. As humans, we tend to operate our lives based upon fear, hoping for the best, yet preparing for the worst. But for the Class of 2020, I pray that we may have courage when we face trials in this world, that we would cast aside the fear that so often holds us down, and step boldly in the direction of our futures. Once we exit this stadium today, we leave behind the comfort and security of high school. We leave behind the life we have known for the last four years, and enter into life in the real world. Our ability to face life with courage will determine our success in the future. If we cower in fear at the thought of the unknown, we may never know the great plans the LORD has in store for each of our lives. Philippians 1:6 says, “be confident of this: that He who began a good work in you, will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” The LORD has begun great works in us here at Trinity. It is no secret that we have come a long way from where we began four years ago. Four years ago, we entered into the world of high school as young, naive freshmen. We were uneducated and unlearned. Now we are here, sitting before you all today, as graduates - a little more educated, a little less naive, and a lot more grown. We leave here today, not only as graduates, but as a class of strong individuals, ready to face life’s next challenge. We leave here as lions. Lions are courageous. Lions are leaders, trailblazers. Lions stand firm against the obstacles life lays before them, boldly fighting against the pull of fear, and bravely pursuing the path to which they have been called. As we leave here today as graduates, let us take with us the lion, never ceasing in courage, but always trusting in the LORD and His mighty plans for each of our lives. Thank You.
Trinity Christian School Salutatorian Speech BY JOHN GETER
I first want to welcome my fellow graduates, family, faculty, invited guests, and everyone who is watching online to Trinity Christian School’s graduation ceremony for the class of 2020. Although the coronavirus ended this chapter of our life prematurely, there is still much more for us to accomplish. An adventure truly lies ahead of us, but we’ll always have a home to return to. A place that nurtured us from the young freshmen starting out in Mrs. Cavanaugh’s Biology class, to finishing up with the living legend himself, John Mueller, whose serves on the tennis court can only be matched by his witty comebacks. We’ve all gone to our final high school football game, stepped on the field, court, or stage, heard Mrs. Forde refer to us as chickens, and heard Mrs. Rinkenberger say, “you don’t have to take the test, you can just get a zero” after someone grumbled about taking one of her tests one final time as high schoolers, now it is time for us to use what we’ve learned here to begin our lives as adults. During my freshman year, I will admit, I wasn’t thinking of being up here today giving a speech, or representing the class of 2020 as salutatorian. However, that all changed when I went to graduation my freshman year. I was sitting near the front to the right of the stage listening to the valedictorian speak, and during that moment, I made the decision that I was going to be speaking at my graduation. There were times when I did not want to do the work, but I always held on to what I told myself at graduation my freshman year. My goal is to inspire you as I once was. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.” Before the pandemic of 2020, many of us would
probably have interpreted continual growth and progress differently than we do now. The growth that we have experienced in facing this crisis in our country is unexpected. In some ways, progress may have felt stalled, but I would like to encourage everyone to not let this pandemic be a roadblock standing in your way but an obstacle which strengthens your resolve. This has been a time of great growth for us, but let’s not stop here. Let’s let the things we have learned during this time propel us forward toward the future we are destined to attain. As we move on to the next stage of our lives, we must continue to grow. We must never stop growing as people, we must never stop progressing. For a stop in one’s progression is one’s greatest failure. We’re all going to face some setbacks in the coming months. We’ll all be embracing a world forever changed by the coronavirus at a point in our lives when we are beginning a brand new journey of going off to college. There are going to be times where we don’t know what to do or where to go. There will be times when all we can think to do is give up. Yet it is up to all of us to continue to push ahead, to forge our own paths, even if we don’t yet know where they are leading. I want all of you to know it is ok to encounter these setbacks, but we should never let these stop us from growing, and we can lean on the people who will always be there for us. I would like to take a moment to thank those people, who have encouraged, pushed, challenged, and motivated me to continue to grow and be all that I can be. I want to start off by thanking Riley, as well as my best friends Gabe, Ryan, Beau and Jeremiah, who made waking up at 6:30 every morning bearable. I also want to thank all of my teachers, who have poured so much time and effort
into educating us and making us who we are today. I want to finish up by thanking my family for without them and all of their sacrifices, I wouldn’t be standing up here today. I want to thank my mom and dad, my brother, and my grandparents for all that they have done to get me where I am now. I know you have all had people who have encouraged and helped you along the way. I encourage you to thank them; embrace what they have taught you, but don’t settle for where you are now. For there is always more which can be accomplished because we all have the potential to be great. A greatness, which is greatly impacted by the choices we make and the people we have in our life. When faced with failures, we must continually make the choice to pick ourselves up and continue to persevere. Take the lessons you’ve learned in your time here at Trinity and look to the future and never settle until you’ve accomplished all of your goals. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know a lot of you, and I know that we have the potential to do great things in a world which could be different than the one we knew. Therefore, I will close with a challenge for you to follow your heart and pursue a cause of importance instead of only the available opportunities. Instead of following the paths of those who came before us, I encourage each and every one of you to blaze your own paths. There will always be risks, but you will learn from the mistakes and be able to continue on with experience. In a quote from Michael Mullen: “Too often we just look at these glistening successes. Behind them in many, many cases is failure along the way, and that doesn't get put into the Wikipedia story or the bio. Yet those failures teach you every bit as much as the successes.” Congratulations graduates and good luck.
DETERMINED. RESILIENT. UNFORGETTABLE.
Congratulations 2020
GRADUATES!
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