Valedictorian Address 2022
There are moments in our lives that even while we’re living them we hope we will never forget, and there are moments in our lives that while we’re living them we really hope we will forget. I am so grateful to say that I have gotten to experience both types of these memories at my time at Ridgeview. The first time I really remember consciously thinking to myself “I really hope I will always remember this” was at the start of the school year. As a class, we all met up to watch the sunrise before the first day of our senior year. There was a bit of chaos, as there always is with us, and I am not sure any of us really saw the sunrise per se, but eventually it all worked out and we ended up playing Groundies on a playground. The world looked a little more beautiful in the early morning glow and our excitement for the upcoming year was palpable. At that time, playing a game that reminded us of a simpler and easier time, I felt a sense of connection and belonging that I had not really felt with my whole grade before.
Our class was not always this picture of unanimity. We certainly had our rocky start. There is a rumor that an emergency meeting was called a few weeks into freshman year to discuss us, but who is to say if that really happened. Our rocky start though, was really just a greater potential for us to grow both as individuals and to grow together, and I fully believe this potential was actualized. Most, maybe all of us, put on a mask a lot of the time, a more perfect version of ourselves that we show to the world, that has all of our positive traits without too many of our negative ones. This version is easier to love, but it is shallow and less than real. Ridgeview has a way of tearing off these masks and seeing the real person beneath. This happened at different times and in different ways for all us, for some it happened when facing a fear of small spaces on the spelunking trip, for others, it happened after a few nights of getting less than recommendable amounts of sleep, and for still others of us, while we were trying to sell a particularly pesky car. No matter what the process was to get there, all of us had to surrender the mask and allow each other to see and to love the real us. Though at the time, we probably did not appreciate the process to get us there, now I, at least, am so grateful that we got the opportunity to experience this love and bonding within our class. I am so grateful to each of you and for our teachers who created a supporting and accepting atmosphere, so that putting down the masks became a little bit easier. Leaving this community that we have built up together is frightening, but I hope that as we go out and create new ones we remember what amazing things can happen when we take off our mask.
Ridgeview not only provided us with an environment to show our real selves, but it also taught us to find the beauty in the world around us. Some may argue that a liberal arts education teaches a person how to think or that it provides us with a choice of what to think on, but I am most grateful that a liberal arts education taught me to see and find beauty. Our teachers taught with such passion and enthusiasm in their chosen fields that it became fairly impossible to not become excited ourselves. Through my years at Ridgeview I learned to see the beauty in the stars, in a well written book, even a well written sentence. I learned to see the beauty in how history unfolds and I even learned to see the beauty in soil and bacteria. I am so grateful to my teachers who opened our eyes to this beauty.
Despite all this beauty, Ridgeview was hard, each of us was faced with challenges, difficulties, and failures. I am pretty sure we all considered giving up and leaving the school at one point or another. But I am so proud to say that the twenty-six of us graduating here today never did give up, despite whatever challenges and adversity had to be overcome in the process. When we go into the “real world” we will undoubtedly be faced with inevitable, and likely greater set backs and failures, but I have full faith that Ridgeview has prepared us to meet these challenges, to persevere through them, and to grow from them. I am so excited to see what all we do as we begin our journeys into the “real world”. I hope that we all remember that we have a home at Ridgeview and with our class that is cheering us on as we go. I hope that we remember that we learn through suffering, or is it that learning is suffering? I hope that we all continue to find beauty in the world around us. I hope that we create new and wonderful communities. And I hope that, every once and a while, we all remember to play a game of Groundies.
-Savanna Ann Schroth