The following speech was delivered by historians Grant Gailius and Rylan Lavallee at the June 7 Prince Charles Secondary School graduation ceremony held at the Creston and District Community Complex:
Grant Gailius: Greetings esteemed family, friends and graduates.
Rylan Lavallee: ‘Sup.
GG: I am Grant Gailius.
RL: And I am Rylan Lavallee.
GG: We
RL: have
GG: decided
RL: to
GG: share
RL: the
GG: work
RL: load
GG: equa
RL: lly.
GG: Just kidding, we’re not gonna put you through that.
RL: Well, here we are in Grade 12. We made it this far with most of the class.
GG: Thirteen years of being a cog in the machine of the public school system.
RL: Y’know, it’s weird to think it’s been 13 years already. I remember it like it was yesterday.
GG: Do you really?
RL: No, actually, just shaving.
GG: You started shaving in kindergarten?
RL: Well, see, I attended kindergarten in Erickson, where our class had Mrs. Husband, Cooper’s mom, for a teacher. The way it worked is that there were different “stations” situated around the room for us to play at once our work was complete — things like a reading station, with books, or a Lite-Brite station, housed in an overturned refrigerator box. There was even a wedding station, with dress up clothes so you could join your childhood sweetheart in holy matrimony.
If I recall, I married Emma Lamontange. I’m pretty sure those weren’t legally binding, though; a shame because 13 years of alimony really would’ve helped pay for university. But I digress…
Perhaps most popular of all the stations was the shaving station. “What business did five-year-olds have shaving?” you ask. Well, it wasn’t quite shaving.
See PCSS, page 20
From page 19
There was shaving foam and popsicle sticks, so we’d smear the shaving foam on our faces and then scrape it off with popsicle sticks to our little hearts’ content. Unfor-tunately the shaving station was so popular many of us developed slight rashes from “shaving” so often.
Little did I know how inconvenient shaving your face would actually become.
GG: Or your legs.
RL: Yes, Grant. Or your legs… (uncomfortable pause)
GG: Speaking of shaving…
Both: Puberty!
RL: Ah, yes. Grade 8. It was a time of transitions.
GG: Girls were becoming curvier, guys were becoming long and awkward and gangly.
RL: Some guys never stopped being long and awkward and gangly… (sideways glance at Grant)
GG: Speaking of long and awkward… (long and awkward pause) High school dances.
RL: Those were certainly a misadventure in butterflies and sweaty palmed romance.
GG: The room was always too hot, and music was always too loud, but we always had a good time.
RL: And y’know, that music was such a big part of our high school experience.
GG: Well Rylan, how’s about we fire up the musical time machine?
(Low starts, they sing along)
RL: We’re sorry for that little outburst, but, y’know…
(“It’s too late to apologize, it’s too late”)
GG: But just hearing all this music again is making me wanna
(“Just dance, gonna be okay, da-da-doo-doo, just dance”)
RL: Grant, we really need to hurry this segment up. We’re running out of time!
(“Tick tock, on the clock, DJ blow ma speakers up, Tonight, I’mma fight, til we see the sunlight”)
GG: Rylan, Rylan, Rylan — we gotta stop! All these sweet tunes are gonna blow out the speakers!
(“Cause we gon’ rock this club, we gon’ go all night, we gon’ light it up, like it’s dynamite”)
RL: Well Grant, I think this bit has overstayed it’s welcome.
GG: One more Rylan, pleeease.
RL: Oh, all right.
(“Party rock is in the house tonight, Everybody just have a good time”)
GG: These songs will forever be tied to our high school experience.
RL: But another big part of the high school experience was the teachers.
GG: Multiple lessons with them have given us timeless memories that we’ll cherish for years to come.
RL: Things like Ms. Seldon’s ugly shirt,
GG: Gribbin’s glasses,
RL: Mrs. C’s los Pandas,
GG: Mr. Hawton’s mullet,
RL: Mrs. Douma’s purses,
GG: Mr. Nelson’s “Morgan wrasslin’ ”,
RL: Mr. Fischer’s grumpy bears,
GG: Mr. Ferguson’s moustache,
RL: Mrs. Breeden’s boccelism,
GG: Mrs. McNiece’s wood cookies,
RL: Mrs. Miller’s accent,
GG: Mr. No’s fool children,
RL: Mr. Coe’s dulcet tones,
GG: Mr Monsen’s beating stick.
RL: And just a word to those not mentioned, don’t feel offended.
GG: It just means we didn’t have something to make fun of you for.
RL: Speaking of making fun of people…
GG: By no means should our esteemed peers be exempted.
RL: Let’s start with those who aren’t here to defend themselves.
Both: Patrick Stewart.
RL: Not to be confused with the Star Trek actor of the same name. Patrick was a former student, and one time was showing off his new heavy duty iPhone case, throwing his phone around, before promptly breaking it.
Both: Ha ha, Patrick.
GG: Remember that time Brett talked about hockey?
RL: Also there was that time Bishop put a softball through that guy’s windshield.
Both: Ha ha, Bishop.
GG: There was also that one time, when the whole final exam, of calculus 12, weighed on whether or not Marcus Range did his homework.
Both: Ha ha, Marcus.
RL: When Emma told everyone that Madi got hit by the handi-bus and everyone thought it was true?
Both: Ha ha, Madi.
GG: Remember all the stuff Jesse did in classes?
Both: Us, neither.
GG: But, on a more serious note, we’ve always looked forward to graduation. It feels like the whole reason we’ve spent thirteen years here, but I’m sad it’s over.
RL: “I can’t wait until I get out of this school,” we used to all tell each other. Being in a town this small, it was fun to imagine something new, meeting different people. It always used to frustrate me that no matter what activities I was doing, which class I was in, which parties I went to, everyone was always the same. But now as I’m standing here on one of our last days all together, I’m wishing these five years hadn’t gone by so fast. But I can take solace in having good memories of pretty much every one of you; that’s the positive of such a small class. It’s a long ceremony, though, and I don’t want to exacerbate it, so I guess I just want to wrap things up with a joke Ashley Sommerfeld absolutely insisted I say while up here: So two cannibals are eating a comedian, and one turns to the other and says, “Does this taste funny to you?”
GG: I must say, having come here from a homeschooled childhood, expecting the high schoolers to all be bad people, you guys turned pretty awesome! You’re all excellent to hang out with in the art room, to break taquitos and drink Tims coffee with. I don’t have a lot of memories with you guys, but most of the memories I have are good ones. Those trips to get snacks, the stealthy smuggling of to-go mugs through the halls, the ceiling tiles, the art room music, the forestry field trips — there are a lot of good memories. Thanks, guys, for a great time in high school!
—GRANT GAILIUS and RYLAN LAVALLEE