Norris School District

[Mr. Skretta's remarks from the 2005 Senior Honors Convocation]

Tonight we honor excellence.  Attaining excellence is not a matter of wishing, hoping, or even wanting.  These are perhaps necessary conditions – but hardly sufficient.  Many students fondly express a desire to achieve academic distinction.  Yet -- so few do.  In my opinion, based on a decade of experience as a teacher and school administrator, this failure to achieve  -- unfortunately, the only thing that distinguishes many students – is seldom due to a lack of intellectual capacity.  Most students have the raw ability, but just as many lack the effort.  Talents are often squandered in the pursuit of instant yet all too ephemeral gratification.  As Stephen King has written, “Talent is a terribly cheap commodity – cheaper than table salt.  What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”  On a glorious spring day like today, some make the choice to take the afternoon off.  Let’s be honest: some students take the entire fourth quarter off!  While we can understand these impulses toward intellectual sloth, the best among us – you – have remained disciplined and focused even while others amongst you have set aside academics to plan a Friday barbecue and the weekend party circuit.  Under the trying circumstances of this year, you could have done the same.  It would have been easy.  Some might say it would even have been acceptable to rationalize a reduced commitment to academic achievement when a facility is in a state of restoration and instructional materials are being shipped into classrooms well into the school year as teachers scrambled to assemble their lesson plans sometimes without benefit of textbooks.  Yet what distinguishes leaders like you is that in a time of difficulty, where others might sink under the burdens of their circumstances, you transcended.  You rose above the particular peculiarities of a very peculiar year and you showed not only your peers but your entire community that great difficulties also bring unique opportunities.

I suggest that your futures beyond Norris are every bit as bright as the sun that shines upon us on this glorious spring day.  As you venture forward, I would ask you to remember that excellence is an endeavor.  It is not a whim, a wish, or an impulse.  In fact, in can be a real grind.  It can be a slow trudge uphill.  Whether it’s an intellectual battle with the riddles of statistics or a valiant struggle to overcome writer’s block when an expository essay is due, it can be tough.  Succeeding in school, and in life might be – to quote Doug Christensen – the equivalent of pushing a grand piano up Dodge Street in Omaha.  For success is not stumbled upon, it is earned.  Tonight, celebrate your success.  You have earned academic distinction in a school that is looked on – rightfully so -- as a beacon of academic excellence throughout our great state.  Cherish this moment.  Pause to recognize your achievements and to take pleasure in the esteemed peers whose camaraderie you have earned. 

Thank you.