Diplomas for 219 at NUHS ceremony

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- While the past 12 years have had their trials and tribulations, the years ahead of the New Ulm High School class of 2004 will offer more opportunities that must be taken advantage of.

That advice was delivered to 219 graduating seniors at the high school's annual commencement exercises at the New Ulm Civic Center Friday night.

District Superintendent Harold Remme said the commencement marked "a significant event in the lives of our youth."

Social studies teacher Rob Bute and class speaker Spencer Dickinson agreed.

Bute, who is serving in the Minnesota National Guard, said the last year of his life has been a rollercoaster for him and his family but also recognized "it's a small detour on the road of life."

Bute said he remembered sitting at his own commencement and recalled the plans he made for himself then. He said he had planned to enlist in the National Guard and then go to school at MSU afterwards "to become a police officer in a big city." He planned to marry his high school sweetheart and planned to got straight to work after his commitment to the National Guard was finished.

"My plans changed," he said. "Now, I'm a social studies teacher and my life has changed. I married my college sweetheart instead."

He told the graduates that they are in charge of where they go from now on.

"It's up to you to recognize the detours of opportunity and not to get stuck in traffic," he said. "Your journey from childhood to adulthood has ended. You've reached the first detour of opportunity."

Dickinson also encouraged his fellow classmates to take advantage of opportunities.

"You can't just sit back and enjoy life. You've got to make something of yourselves," he said.

"Remember to never give up and don't just stand there. Make something happen," he said later.

Once the commencement addresses were delivered, Principal Mark Bergmann told the class he would miss everything it had done at school from athletics to academics to music.

And one by one, Assistant Principal Pamela Kirsch read off each of the 219 names from A to Z. The stage at graduation was as it always is at graduation time--awash in a sea of purple and white, with several young men and women walking in high school students and leaving with the rest of their lives ahead of them.