Prince Charles Secondary School historians Reede Hawton and Victoria Bowns presented this speech at the June 7 graduation ceremony:
(Reede and Victoria dance up from opposite sides of the stage, do handshake and walk up to mike)
Reede Hawton (RH): Grads 2014!
Victoria Bowns (VB): Swoop!
(Pretend to walk away)
VB: Just kidding, just kidding
RH: How’d the handshake look? Was it cool? We practiced it a lot.
VB: I’m still kind of nervous, Reede. What did Mr. Banman say again?
RH: He told us to picture everyone in their underwear but I keep making eye contact with people’s parents and our teachers. Actually I think I can see Mr. Coe’s chest hair and it’s getting weird.
VB: Reede, I don’t think he’s even here!
RH: OK! We’re good to go! For those of you who don’t know us (which I find very hard to believe), I’m Reede Hawton and this is my friend, Victoria Bowns.
VB: Good evening family members, peers, teachers and everyone who made the effort to be here tonight. We really appreciate it
RH: Victoria and I are extremely fired up to talking to you all know how the PCSS grads of 2014 came to be
VB: The best thing about being high school historians is there’s absolutely no chance of someone getting up here and making fun of how we came to be.
RH: Definitely dodged a bullet on that one.
VB: You know Reede, we really have been through a lot.
RH: Oh really? I find that hard to believe considering most of us are only 18 years old
VB: No, I’m serious! Some very notable and stressful things have happened in our lifetime. I did some research and it turns out we’ve survived 31 predicated apocalypses! We also survived the swine flu epidemic, and we witnessed the slow but steady decline of Miley Cyrus — she needs to stop.
RH: Thirty-one, eh? That isn’t at all a small number! Not only did our generation survive these mishaps, we thrived! We watched our extremely influential neighbors south of the border elect their first African-American president, we saw Canada win its first Olympic gold medal on home soil and we heard Rob Ford apologize for smoking crack at least 312 times.
VB: Yes, and speaking in actual historical relevance, we witnessed some downright inspirational victories, like Harry defeating Voldemort, Frodo singlehandedly save Middle Earth, and Ash almost catch ’em all.
RH: So close... I think we did a pretty decent job telling everyone about the past 18 years in history, so let’s scale that down to the last five years of our high school history.
VB: Good call, Reede. I think this might be the fun part.
RH: I think so too! Maybe we should tell them the things we’ll miss about high school and the things we wont miss at all. Why don’t you start us off, Vic?
VB: Might as well start with the things we won’t miss starting from the beginning: Grade 8. I’ll never forget watching the deepening of voices, the unpredictable growth of hair and pimples, and of course the growth spurts leading to clumsy and gangly 13-year-olds wandering the halls. Good thing we made it out of that one, eh, Reede?
RH: Yeah... Along with the awkwardness of puberty come the awkwardness of trying to “find oneself” — anyone remember Victoria’s skunk stripe phase?
VB: Hey, I thought we weren’t supposed to get beaked up here. Other than that, one thing I for surely won’t miss is being one of the only Asians in our school. The perks that came along with my exotic features are 1) constantly being mistaken for Denelle (I’m looking at you Mr. Simpson) and 2) being called Chinese food names — I’m not even Chinese!
RH: Weird I never had that problem. However, one problem I did have along with all of my fellow classmates was the actual academic aspect of school. I’d always get all worried after I handed my test in and go around the room asking everyone how they did. My least favorite part would be getting to Alana and hearing her say she felt fine, even great —
VB: — and knowing that she did fine and she did great.
RH: Another school-wide issue would be the requirement to ask to go to the bathroom. Yes, us young adults all gathered here today would have had to ask to urinate a few short hours ago. Now, I really do hate to single anyone out, but Mrs. Christenson implemented a hall pass system, which was simply the worst.
VB: I’m not going to miss the FBI level of security upheld in our library. Honestly, who’s going to steal a library book? Reede…
RH: I won’t miss watching Ms. Shreeves make deliveries from the foods room to all of the teachers and exactly zero students
VB: As if math wasn’t hard enough, Mrs. Maki’s Britney Spears headset did not help.
RH: I won’t miss getting lapped on the milk run by Ms. Thorne.
VB: And last but not least:
Both: The cup rule!
VB: I’ve never hated one disciplinary action more in my life. For those of you who don’t know it means, you can’t walk around with one of these (holds up to-go cup) but you can walk around with one of these (holds up shaker bottle).
RH: Which is good for all the swoldiers in our grade: Bretty, Keiran, Big Jake, #gains!
VB: OK, Reede, that’s probably enough chirping for tonight.
RH: You’re probably right, Victo. Let’s lighten the mood a bit here. What will you miss about PCSS?
VB: I’ll miss all the awkward Grade 8 couples. I think it would be nice if we took a brief moment of silence for the ones that didn’t make it. (A few seconds) OK, that’s probably good enough.
RH: I’d be lying if I said I’m not still a huge fan of Kail and Sam. They should’ve been forever.
VB: I’ll miss going to school in the morning to hear all the juicy gossip, such as Niel got hit by another car and it wasn’t by Oliver in his majestic PT cruiser.
RH: Or when Sun-R got a new drive thru…
VB: Sun-R got a drive through?
RH: Well, you see, the difference between forward and reverse aren’t always so clear, especially to a new driver. Our friend Karli made that pretty clear when as opposed to reversing out of her parking spot she drove through it, right into the front window of Creston’s favorite Chinese food restaurant. Our condolences to the Livingstones, who had glass shards in their wonton soup.
VB: One kid who does know the difference between forward and reverse is Austin Agabob — I swear the kid buys a new vehicle every week!
RH: There’s actually a lot of vehicle guys in our grade, one of them being Dwight Betker, who likes driving so much he literally drives half a block to church lunch every week.
VB: What about those AVID trips? We’ve never been on one but they sure did sound fun.
RH: Isn’t that right, Deaner?
VB: I’ll miss watching Greg Benty’s 110 per cent efforts in intramural anything.
RH: I’ll miss watching the teachers shut down Greg Benty along with every other student in intramural anything. Actually I’ll miss all of the teachers and all of their quirks.
VB: Gribbin’s beard… Gribbin’s beard…
RH: Ms. Margaret Millers accent. Was that bad?
VB: (monotone) Mr. Coe’s bonus marks.
RH: Ms. Seldon’s endless Valley Girl comments.
VB: Seriously?
RH: Stop being a Valley Girl…
VB: Mama Lanks’ frogs.
RH: Mr. Banman’s gigantic forehead.
VB: Mrs. Douma’s lovely purses.
RH: Mr. Hawton’s mullet.
VB: And that’s just naming a few! If we didn’t pick on you, know that it’s only because we have nothing to make fun of you for.
RH: More than anything, Victoria and I want to express how grateful we are having met all of you and having made memories we will forever cherish. It’s an absolute treat seeing all of your faces five days a week, and above all else we’ll miss that the most!
VB: You’ve been a great audience and an exceptional grad class
Both: 2014, it’s been a slice!