Advertisement 
Valedictorian, National Merit Scholarship finalist, All State Scholar and Vern Dale Scholarship recipient Ravi Shah, for example, encouraged his classmates to listen to life.
“If each generation were complacent with the knowledge that was already dug up, and mined for no more, we would have never grown so culturally rich,” said Shah, whose sister Suchita was valeditorian in 2005. “It would be as if musicians never improvised or tried new things, as if they played the same songs over and over again.
“And even if each generation passed on what information they discovered, even if everyone was driven to learn everything we could possibly understand in the physical world, all that boundless wisdom would be completely, utterly useless, if this information was never once used to enrich the world, to improve a nation, to help out a society or even put a smile on someone else’s face. A world like this would be a one in which musicians who have studied acoustics and music theory for their entire lives but never picked up their instrument to play one single note.”
To complete his listening to life and music message, Shah rendered a beatboxing version of Run DMC’s “It’s Tricky,” with lyrics that congratulated the Class of 2008.
Trying to follow that act was a challenge salutatorian Katie Kennedy took on with gusto, bringing to life the trials and tribulations of 13 years in school and comparing them to reality television shows. She compared the elementary school years to the show “True Life,” filled with fruit juice and magic reading carpets and recess. Then came middle school.
“I believe it is obvious that only one show, ‘Survivor,’ could title these three challenging years,” she said. “While we were never voted off an island, at times there was an overwhelming feeling that friends may wish they could.”
Kennedy labeled the freshman year as “Fear Factor” and the rest of high school as “Beauty and the Geek.”
“We became comfortable in our own skin, sort of,” she said.
Kennedy compared the graduation ceremony to “the taping of the final episode of our high school series.”
“The Real World” illustrates where Kennedy believes the students were headed. She thanked all the teachers for being the producers of the shows. “Parents and family members, I believe you have played the part of the TV show hosts and hostesses in this crazy metaphor.
“Our lives have developed from nap time to cramming for finals ... Crayolas to college acceptances ... the first day of kindergarten to today’s high school graduation,” Kennedy said. “Now it is our turn to create our own reality and control our own fate.”
Liz Imhoff recapped the entire school career and the challenges the students had already faced. She wanted to remind students that life comes and goes pretty fast and they needed to stop and look around every once in a while or they’d miss it.
“When nap time came in kindergarten, I would never have guessed that something I dreaded daily I would only wish for in high school,” she said. “We moved on to learning spelling, the multiplication tables and cursive writing and, after some struggle, got through those challenges just fine.
“Fourth grade came and so (did) Sand Lake Elementary and we had to cope with friends moving due to a change in elementary school boundaries. And finally, some of us faced losing a teacher as Ms. Bareford’s fifth graders at Viking Elementary did.
“These challenges, however, did not keep us from enjoying recess and milk break or remembering the good times watching Power Rangers, riding a bike without training wheels for the first time and having sleep-overs with our best buds.”
Imhoff choked and teared up in talking about the challenge of losing Conor McLaughlin, a classmate who died in a car crash in 2006.
“We lost our classmate Conor McLaughlin on that April day of our sophomore year,” she said. “We know we have beaten the odds and overcome the challenges of losing loved ones as so many of us had to face when we can look back and smile at all the good times.”
Imhoff challenged her classmates to be kind to those they cross on their paths throughout life’s journey, “because you do not know the challenges they face.”
Duane Vike was the faculty speaker and he told the students his father was a baseball player and he used the analogy of a baseball player taking advantage of his opportunities: “You’re moving up or you are done,” he said.
As with the world of baseball, Vike said that to get ahead in life the students had to be committed to lifelong learning. “As you go through life, you need to keep getting smarter, keep learning, keep getting better.”
Vike also took a moment to congratulate retiring teacher Deb Johnson for receiving the salute from seniors at the seniors award dinner.
In his parting remarks in his last graduation ceremony, retiring Principal Bernie Ferry left the students with some words of wisdom from Henry David Thoreau’s poem “Your Journey.” “As you set out in search of your goals/Pray that your journey be long/Full of adventure, full of awakenings/Do not fear failure — it will be there!/If your thoughts are honorable and remain high/If authentic passion stirs your mind, body and spirit/It will sustain you in your journey./Advance confidently in the direction of your dream/And endeavor to live the life which you have imagined/And you will meet with happiness and success that is unexpected in common times.”
After all 256 diplomas were handed out, Holmen School Board President Cheryl Hancock said, “Shaking those hands is the most rewarding thing I do as a board member. I just get giddy when I do it. When I shake their hand and look into their eyes, I see so much joy and hope. You can see the happiness and pride in their eyes.”
Advertisement 
