Spain Park sends 389 graduates into the world from Class of 2017

Spain Park High School tonight sent 389 graduates of the Class of 2017 out into the world at a commencement ceremony at Samford University.

Ninety-eight percent of seniors at the school qualified to graduate, said Tracy Prater, Spain Park’s college and career counselor. They received $16.9 million in scholarship offers and accepted $8.7 million of those scholarships, Prater said.

Members of the Class of 2017 now are headed to 150 colleges and universities in 34 states and three foreign countries, including Canada, China and Scotland, school officials said. Six are headed into the military.

Fifty-four percent of the senior class were offered scholarships, Principal Larry Giangrosso said.

Regardless of their plans after high school, Giangrosso told the graduates that the expectations for them change from this point forward.

Society will quit expecting other people – whether teachers or parents – to advocate for them and ask them to become advocates for themselves, he said. He told the students it is up to them to make decisions for themselves and then to live with the outcomes of those choices.

“You will decide where to live, where to work, who to marry and how to live your lives. The responsibility will be strongly on your shoulders,” he said.

Parents, teachers and others who have come before them will ask them to solve the problems they couldn’t solve, right the wrongs they couldn’t right and take care of them in their old age, Giangrosso said. And the Class of 2017 will be expected to give the generation of children that they bring into the world the tools, moral integrity, work ethic and education to do the same, he said.

 “The tasks before you are great. The tasks before you will be challenging and sometimes seem insurmountable,” Giangrosso said.

But he believes they will rise to the challenge and be called the next “greatest generation,” he said.

The Spain Park Class of 2017 has 12 valedictorians this year. They are Jenna Alkhatib, Abhimanyu Arora, Margaret Baldwin, Jackson Gutshall, Devin Hagan, Kameron Hagerla, Erin Hartwiger, Fizza Mahmood, Chase Nord, Nate Rogers, Meredith Schoel and William Zhao. Three of them — Gutshall, Mahmood and Baldwin — gave speeches tonight.

Gutshall encouraged his classmates to find at least one thing at which they can continually get better. Once they graduate, they’re expected to go to college or get a job, he said. They should still work hard to achieve their goals, but he encouraged them to have a good time along the way as well.

Mahmood told her classmates to remember the potential that lies within each one of them and to steadily pursue happiness. “Our futures have endless possibilities,” she said. “Our lives are just beginning.”

Getting to where they are now would not have been possible without the support of many people — teachers, mentors, siblings, friends and especially parents, she said. “I would not be who I am without my parents.”

Baldwin challenged her fellow seniors to follow the lead of Hall of Fame Tennessee basketball coach Pat Summitt, who was quoted as saying that “Winning is fun. Sure, but winning is not the point. Wanting to win is the point. Not giving up is the point. Never letting up is the point. Never being satisfied with what you’ve done is the point.”

Getting a high school diploma is an amazing feat, but each of them needs to strive to continually grow — as a student, an employee, a family member and as a person, Baldwin said.

If they will commit to becoming a better human being, everything else, such as finding the right job and the right person to marry, will fall into place, she said.

Senior Class President Thomas Jordan recalled the many memories the Class of 2017 made together — the snowstorm that stranded many of them at school in January 2014, the athletic state championship runs and the Battle of the Sexes competitions.

“All great things must come to an end,” Jordan said. “Whether we want to admit it or not, Spain Park has played a major part of who we are and who we’ll become in the future.”

They’ve grown mentally, physically, religiously and socially during their years at Spain Park, he said. “Spain Park is truly a special place with some truly special people,” he said. “The friendships we have made will last a lifetime, and the memories will, too.”

It has been said that high school prepares students for college and college prepares students for the real world, but Jordan told his classmates to remember that the journey is important, too.

“It’s important to enjoy the moment, to live the day out,” he said.

He quoted the words of the fictional character Ferris Bueller: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around every once in a while, you could miss it.”