The North Surry Class of 2016 is an outstanding group of young adults, according to one administrator.
Principal Paige Badgett said, “This class has left impressive marks on the history of North Surry.”
Eighty-one percent of the 185 graduates who walked across the football field to receive their diplomas Saturday morning intend to further their educations at institutions of higher learning, according to Badgett. Nineteen percent will go on to four-year universities and 61 percent plan to take classes at a two-year college.
Badgett said 10 percent of her school’s 2016 graduates intend to enter the workforce, and two percent have said they will join the armed forces.
Badgett highlighted the academic achievements of the students who anxiously awaited their final act as a Greyhound, saying 29 of the graduates had maintained a grade point average of at least 4.0. The graduating class had received a total of $1.4 million in scholarships.
“This ceremony is a fitting conclusion, and the beginning to a new world,” noted Badgett before introducing North Surry student body president Andrew Cave.
“Our futures are truly in front of us,” said Cave. “It starts here.”
Cave said graduates will take many paths in life, “but each path should have meaning.”
Each student should strive to meet his or her potential in life — “to be all you can be.” He noted how much better the world would be if all lived up to their true potential.
“We owe it to ourselves to do more — to be more.”
“The future is truly in our hands,” concluded Cave. “Once a Greyhound, always a Greyhound.”
Senior class president Grace Swift used her remarks to reminisce a little about the days spent in the halls at North Surry, at athletic events, homecoming dances and other school functions.
She said though the class days at North Surry have ended, “The memories and friends continue on.”
She told her fellow classmates never to be afraid to fail, for if one never tries they have simply “failed by default.” No dream is to big for the members of the 2016 class.
She ended her remarks with a St. Jerome quote — often attributed to basketball star Tim Duncan — meant to highlight the need to always work to be a better person and a more successful person.
“Good, better, best. Never let it rest. ‘Til your good is better, and your better is best.”
