St. Marys DCVI Class of 2025-2026 Valedictorian’s speech

Valedictorian Abby Houston delivers her address to the Class of 2025-2026 at the St. Marys DCVI commencement ceremony June 25.

By St. Marys Independent Staff

The following is St. Marys DCVI Valedictorian Abby Houston’s commencement address, delivered to her classmates in the Class of 2025-2026 at the Pyramid Recreation Centre June 25.

Hello everyone! I’m so thankful that you guys gave me the privilege of representing us today. It’s been an honour to get to watch all of us grow over the past four years. Everyone says high school is different, but you don’t truly see that until you’ve been through it, so I want to thank my friends and family for helping me along the way.

High school has been a fun and interesting time for me as I’m sure it has been for you. Some mornings we would come to school to see Marcou trying to light his desk on fire or Chateauvert blasting music down the hallway at 8:30 in the morning and you just knew it was going to be a good day. I want to thank the staff for making us all feel welcome and helping us in our times of need. We couldn’t have made it here without your support. You have truly made an impact on all of us that we will never forget.

We have gone through many changes during our time here. Grade 9 was all about finding your people and learning how to navigate high school.

Grade 10 we solidified friendships and started to think about what we wanted to do with our future. Then Grade 11 came and we had to work our butts off to get what we wanted. And Grade 12, of course, has been quite a ride. We made it through first-semester exams, the hockey boys all having blond hair, and now we made it to our commencement. It is crazy to think back about who we were then and who we are now.

As for me, if I asked myself in Grade 9 if I would be our valedictorian, I would have said absolutely not. Who was I? I didn’t know all of you, so how could I represent you? I didn’t have the confidence that I have now, and I only gained that confidence through my experiences with all of you. I found my confidence through the support of you and our wonderful staff. Whether it was Ms. Mitchell giving me opportunities to perform and show my creative side, Seebach, Marcou and Good giving me chances to learn in the lab, or Shaddick giving me the opportunity to write some super awesome, fun calculus tests, I always came out of those experiences feeling more confident in myself, confident that I had the skills to succeed in life academically, socially and personally. Having confidence that if I was having a bad day, I knew I had someone to go to, or if I needed help figuring something out, that someone would always be there.

I learned that being confident doesn’t mean you’re the loudest person in the room. It means that you are yourself in every room you enter. So, as we move on to the next chapter in our lives, I want you to take time to participate in opportunities and continue to seek them out so that we can grow to be confident, independent adults who have the skills to lead meaningful lives because, as Billy Joel said, “You can get what you want or you can just get old.”

I know we’ve all learned important life lessons through our four years here. A few weeks ago, I asked some of you what was the most important thing you learned about life from high school. Some answers I got were learning how to manage your time effectively, not caring what other people think about you, that change is necessary for personal growth and that people will only change if they want to. As we go through life, there will always be chances to learn, and I advise you to always take them. Some of the biggest lessons we are going to learn is through failure.

Transitioning to the next step in our lives might be hard for some of us. We’re going to have to learn to live away from home, manage difficult courses, learn how to navigate the workforce and so much more. We are going to have failures during this time. Unfortunately for me, I choose to make my academic life this difficult. I quickly fell into the mindset that just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean I’m not going to do it. But that can’t fight off the fact that we all have hard times every once in a while. There were times when I questioned why I took my courses and if I was good enough to do them. But then I started to learn about the balance of life. You have to give yourself a break. You need time to relax and get yourself back to a good place. When you don’t give yourself this time, then your failures feel just like failure, even though every one is actually an opportunity to learn, even when it doesn’t feel like it. One of my favourite Aerosmith lyrics is, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got,” so don’t be afraid to try new things because your failures will just let you grow.

One of the major things I noticed as I went through high school was how much our differences melted away. I learned to appreciate that we are all a part of each other’s story. I became friends with all different kinds of people. From my wild boys to my crazy girls, you know who you are, we all found ourselves learning to care for and appreciate each other. We all have our differences but ultimately, we’re in this together. Take the time to learn about the people around you because “Life moves pretty fast; if you don’t stop and look around you, you could miss it,” as Ferris Bueller said. Cherish the people around you because they can help you become your best self. Allow people to know you. Let yourself be vulnerable. These next few years are going to be pretty great, but they are also going to be difficult. Allow yourself to lean on people when you need to.

Remember the importance of mental health and make sure you keep an eye on yourself and the people around you.

The final thing I want to leave you with tonight is that you should always continue to be yourselves once we leave here. I am a musical nerd and I love it. I am totally going to tell you everything about my favourite movie the second you mention it and I will explain all of my biology notes to you out of pure enjoyment for myself.

Some of us may love to dance, or fix cars, or randomly shave our heads and dye it blue. Do what makes you happy and you will always thrive in life. Of course, I’m going to bring up my favorite movie, as Back To The Future so wisely put it, “Your future hasn’t been written yet. No one’s has. Your future is whatever you make it. So, make it a good one.”

Thank you, everyone, and enjoy the rest of the night.