Another school year has come to a close for Pinnacle Canyon Academy. In addition to standard summer celebrations, the school had another reason to celebrate as it congratulated its 2025 graduating class on Wednesday, May 21.
Max Valdez McCullough opened the ceremony and welcomed attendees. “I’d like to take the time and thank each and every one of you. From parents waking us up in the morning for the first day of kindergarten to the lunch ladies giving us our first meal of the day. The janitors and the coaches who spent more hours in the building after school than I did in total.” He continued,” To the counselors and the principals who always knew what to say and the bus drivers who took us home safely after our day. And to our teachers. Wow, a simple thank you just isn’t enough. You guys showed up daily and continued encouraging us to do great things. Look at where they got us today.”
“Now to my fellow peers. Congratulations, we’re done. After 13 years, 2500 school days and a few sluffs, we made it. I wouldn’t have wanted to do it with a different group as we move forward into our futures.”
McCullough then passed the mic to the evening’s keynote speaker, English teacher Kristen Daniel. Daniel spoke on the belief that you deserve something, evoking the words of Clint Eastwood from the 1992 film Unforgiven: ” Deserves got nothing to do with it.”
“That one line haunted me. It lives in my head, rent-free. Because deserved means, if I look it up in the dictionary, it means to do something or have or show qualities worthy of reward or punishment. So you think that deserve has to do with everything, but maybe it’s not that simple,” said Daniel. “I think that many of us even subconsciously are hung up, stuck, mired, trapped in this concept of deserved. I always thought, as do most of us, that we do or are something, and then somehow, through mystical means, are judged and then found deserving of good or bad things. Great success or epic fails. But Clint, with that one question, changed that mindset for me forever.
She continued,” Perhaps throughout your life, others have decided for you. But that time is over. You have to decide that now. Only you can do that … stop asking whether you deserve it. Instead, decide what you want and go get it. Look, you would be surprised how many highly successful people arrived at that level of success simply because they never questioned whether or not they should or could do it. They just went after it, and they just did it.”
In closing, Daniel said,” We want you to have every good and beautiful thing. We want you to be bold. We think you deserve trumpets and big, bold, beautiful music as the soundtrack to your big, bold, beautiful life. If you ever doubt that or doubt how to get it. Look at what you have been taught and learn from these exceptional individuals. We think, no, we know you deserve the world. So, class of 2025, go get it.”
Following Daniel was the salutatory address delivered by Karder Anderson. “First, to the teachers who shaped us into the people we are today. Thank you for putting up with our – my – procrastination, endless excuses and for answering the same questions over and over. Thank you for teaching and sacrificing so much to make us believe in ourselves. Second, to our coaches, thank you for being the unsung heroes of our journey. Thank you for pushing us past our limits, mentally and physically. You taught us discipline, resilience and how to fight through what we felt like giving up.”
Anderson added,” Thank you to our families and friends who stuck with us through every late-night study session. Every ‘I’m gonna fail this test’ and this new age math. Thank you to our parents, who drove us to the store at 10:30 at night for a project we forgot was due the next day. You all have been on rock, our emotional support, and our loudest cheerleaders. And to my fellow graduates, we made it. I repeat, we made it.”
Next to the podium stepped Heather Kerr for the second salutatory address. “The moment you see our existence as silence before the first sound, you begin to understand that life doesn’t come at you. It comes from you. You are the one with the ability to make the first chime or buzz anybody has ever heard. You cannot waste today waiting for an unpromised tomorrow.”
“Today is the day that these graduates mark themselves as Pinnacle’s official class of 2025; you’re not just beginning a new chapter; you’re turning the silence you’ve lived your entire lives into a melodic song. When your focus shifts to your efforts, success stops being a question of if, but when. If you feel like moving forward is too hard, start with something easier, like not going back.” Kerr closed,” Sunsets are examples that endings like ours can be beautiful. And, of course, accept what you can’t change and change what you can’t accept.”
Rounding out the slate of speakers was valedictorian Zoie Patterson. “To my classmates. I know many of you are probably ready to get this over with and don’t care about yet another speech, which is fair, I guess. Just hang in there a little bit longer, I promise. It’s almost over. For those who don’t know, I love to read a lot. A common theme in the books I read is the exploration of self from having hidden powers to accepting who they are. There’s always more to a person than one realizes, and perhaps more than the person realizes. I know that was the case for myself. The past couple of years, I have realized the importance of knowing who you are.”
“From my point of view, some of you have always known who you are, to which I say good for you. However, there are times in life when we falter and returning to oneself is one of the biggest guiding factors we can rely on. I’ve also seen many of us become who we are and find who we are. That’s not to say we won’t change and grow over time, and we have already. There is so much we can still discover about ourselves as we continue day-to-day.
Patterson closed by stating,” From the family and friends in our personal lives to faculty and staff at the school. We have people we can go to for advice and help outside of ourselves, as a second opinion never hurts. On behalf of the class of 2025, we thank everyone in our lives who has helped us, advised us and just plain put up with us to get to this point … I also congratulate you on all your accomplishments to this point and onward. No mourners, no funerals.”
Castle Country Radio would like to congratulate the Pinnacle Academy class of 2025 and wish them good luck on their next adventures.