News & Events 2006-2007

Valedictory Speech
Speaker: Samantha Mary Peretore

Before I begin, I’d like to thank a few people. On behalf of the senior class, thank you to Mr. Hardwick, Mr. Bacon, Mr. Amerman, Mr. Low, and the administration for keeping Blair running smoothly and working hard to make our lives here as perfect as possible. Thank you to the faculty, who took an interest in us and our lives in addition to our academic well-being and progress. Thank you to the Board of Trustees for overseeing and managing the school; we appreciate all of your efforts. Thank you to all of the students for being our friends and making Blair a dynamic and fun place. And finally, thank you to our parents, who have supported and guided us, and thank you especially for the sacrifices you have no doubt made to give us this opportunity. We love you.

This all feels so different than I had imagined it would feel; it’s so disorienting. I haven’t really felt like a senior all year, and so graduation seems so distant, a whirl of white dresses and navy blue blazers that I’m meant to watch from the outside, not as a senior, holding a diploma and wearing this dress I’m sure I’ll stain by the end of the luncheon. Not as a senior, sitting in these seats with my class rather than on the library hill. Not as a senior, with my family in the audience, and my mom bawling her eyes out.

This is the end of our walks through the arch, games in the Bowl, and H block lunches as “Blair kids.” But won’t we always be Blair kids? I hope so, since that’s all I really know myself as. I find it bewildering that, until four years ago, I wasn’t, and that after today, I won’t be. I mean, we’ve seen the exit signs for four years. Sometimes our arms stretched out to make some part of ourselves closer to that exit; sometimes, if truth be told, some of us have been waiting underneath these signs, arms crossed and feet tapping for years. But do you find that elusive, neon exit sign so desirable now that you’re here, in white and blue, with the school ushering us out by 4 p.m.? Our years and months and weeks and days here may have seemed long, but now that we have only hours until we are scheduled to leave and not return for more classes, practices, formal dinners, and tests, don’t the seconds just fly by? Tick-tock. We have about four hours left.

Four hours left of our Blair experience as students here. Do you have any regrets? If you could go back to our Freshman Retreat, our first weekend as Blair students, would you do anything differently? Our class has had its fair share of trials and tribulations, but hey, those bumps in the road made for an interesting ride. Life can get monotonous in Blairstown without our troubles and worries…those were pieces of the Blair experience that we look back on so fondly. And the tough times were opportunities to bond, to lean on each other, to help each other. Together, we overcame the obstacles and together, we leave a stronger, more mature, more comfortable group. We will become individuals again wherever we’re headed and will have to work to create what we had here, but if we did it once, we can do it again. We’re off to places where no one knows our name, where we’ll need to introduce ourselves and hold out a hand to shake, but we do it all with the comfort of having this big family to hold on to and who will love us always.

We are Blair-molded, you and I, no matter how much we have fought against the Blair stamp. This is our strongest common thread, that a piece of each of us matches a piece of the rest. We can talk with our brothers and sisters about growing up in whatever circumstances we shared, about our parents’ idiosyncrasies, about our bad jokes and holiday traditions. Well, as members of the Blair family, we share another set of circumstances, idiosyncrasies, jokes, and traditions that no one else will ever understand or be “in” on.

We will always remember Mr. Low’s clipboard, Mr. Bacon’s integrity lectures, Mr. Hardwick’s wise and kind…and huge…leading hands, Mr. Amerman’s bell and seagull images, and our first bomb of a Senior Class Council video. We even have our own lingo—be careful not to refer to your college’s eatery as the Can, don’t call the woman behind the counter Marsh, and don’t expect her to know what your “usual” bagel is. Fifty years from now, you might crave a Can bagel and when you call your old roommate to share your longing for a piece of round bacon, he or she will likely heartily agree. These are things we—and only we—can talk about, and these are things only we can understand. We are Blair kids, and this school, these people, this campus, is our common parent.

Our Blair family extends across the globe, and this is invaluable. We may take it for granted that our friends come from here and there and everywhere, but especially since we are only graduating from high school, to already be exposed to so many different and interesting people is an amazing gift. We can travel to the other side of the planet and find Blair friends who will open their doors to us. We have family in South Korea, Thailand, Angola, England, Nicaragua, and all the rest. And I know from experience that staying with Blair family in another country is definitely the way to travel—staying with family always beats being a tourist in a foreign place. Blair doors, and hearts, will remain open to us all of our lives. So Blair leaves us with a feeling of comfort, belonging, and support. We came for an education; we leave with that and with a large and worldly family.
This remarkable diversity makes the character of our class tough to pin down. What mark do we, the class of 2007, leave on Blair as we move on? How will we be remembered? The faculty called the class of 2005 “united.” The class of 2006 was “spiky.” But we were never given a clear label. So I asked Mr. Hardwick: what about us? A few days later, he said that he and the faculty had discussed it and had decided that we are achievers—we exceeded their expectations and achieved.
We did? We are? Achievers? I had not expected that tag.

But hey, Blair grads have achieved great things and changed the world since the school was first founded. John Bogle created index funds and changed Wall Street forever. He’s a giant in the industry, often quoted as an expert and held up as an ethical and moral icon of the finance world. Dominic Romano is the heart and backbone of a wide range of non-profit and civic organizations in northwest New Jersey, not to mention a fabulously successful entrepreneur. Luol Deng has pursued and succeeded in a career that has so large an interested audience and so few spots on the teams that his story is one in a million. And, more importantly, the NBA recently honored him with the Joe Dumars Trophy, the Sportsmanship Award, which recognizes his ethical behavior, fair play, and integrity.

These Blair grads and others are giants. Maybe there are giants amongst us.
Maybe we will build industries, lead great companies, save lives, entertain, and change the world. Blair grads changing the world: Possible? Probable? It’s already happened.

Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” Maybe this small group of people will again achieve and again exceed expectations.

Who knows? We can only hope, and I wish great things for all of us. Or rather, I hope we all get whatever it is that we want.

I hope we all bring our yearbooks with us next year, and whenever we need comfort, we’ll flip through it and remember that we have a family in each other. The silly little things that have sometimes divided us will break down and become insignificant once we leave; and we’ll remember each other as people with at least these one, two, three, or four years of history and remember that we celebrated this day together; we’ll remember each other as people who have indelibly marked us and whom we have, in return, indelibly marked. We are Blair’s Graduating Class of 2007. Congratulations, we did it!

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Posted 5/31/07

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