by Jim Boyle
Editor
Zimmerman High School’s Class of 2024 graduated on June 4 after a night of celebration, reflection and anticipation of what lies ahead.
Before receiving their diplomas, students were addressed by Superintendent Dan Bittman, two student speakers and one staff speaker.
“Each of you have worked incredibly hard to reach this milestone and your dedication, your perseverance and resilience have brought you here today,” Bittman said. “Your journey has been marked with challenges and triumphs, and, through it all, you have demonstrated a remarkable ability to learn, to adapt and to grow.”
They have also been willing to listen, as evidenced by the student body’s request for one last dose of “Scotty advice” from Scott Anderson, the school resource officer, who was selected by the students to speak.
“I would like to thank you for inviting me to speak here today,” he told the 168 seniors seated before him. “It’s both an honor and a privilege to stand before you on this momentous occasion. I am very humbled that you asked me to speak, considering all the great candidates that work in this building.”
Being it was his first graduation speech, he turned to the internet, lifelong friends and students for suggestions — with not much success.
A Chat GPT speech came out boilerplate-sounding and boring. Lifelong friends had interesting ideas, but they were a bit dated and were not so fitting for a crowd with parents and grandparents in attendance.
Suggestion from students ranged from winging it to a Q&A format, which could have produced interesting but perhaps not the desired results, he concluded. Plus, Principal Marco Voice told him to keep it short.
He settled on the most common answer from students, which was to share some “Scotty advice.”
“So after deciding what to chat about, I decided to prepare with the same strategy many of you have devoted to studying for an important test,” Anderson said. “So late last night I got to work. I chugged a couple energy drinks, scrolled through TikTok and Reels and then finally opened my computer and got to work.”
His first bit of advice was being present.
“It easier said than done, but be present in the moment,” he said “We can’t change what we did yesterday, and we have no idea what is going to happen tomorrow. If you wronged someone in the past, we can’t go back in time. Trust me, I wish I had a time machine to go back and fix all the stupid stuff I’ve done.
“We can, however, make amends, correct our behavior moving forward and learn from our mistakes.”
Anderson also suggested making things right as you go along and not letting things build up.
“They can add up quick and start to slow you down and keep you from being grounded in the present moment,” said.
After going through several other nuggets of advice, he sent them all away with an assignment to make a mental note of things they wanted to accomplish.
“If you stay present, help others, be kind, clean up your side of the street as you go and keep things simple, I have no doubt you will complete everything on your list, but you will go on to do things you haven’t even dreamed of yet,” he said.
He closed with his take on a Mr. Rogers quote that goes like this: “You don’t have to do anything sensational for people to love you.”
In his own words, Anderson said: “You don’t have to be the most successful, have the biggest house or drive the fanciest car. Just be the best version of you. Love yourself and others will love you back.”
Student speakers focused more on their journey to get to graduation, and the endless possibilities for the future.
Sarah Larson recalled lining the hallways of Zimmerman Elementary School as young children and watching in awe as ZHS seniors strode by them in caps and gowns, never believing that it would be them walking down those same hallways in their own caps and gowns like they did five days before graduation day.
“The years we embark on after high school are some of the most important and will most likely set up the rest of our lives,” she said. “It is important to remember all the memories and people and to be happy they happened and honored that we were fortunate enough to grow up with the amazing people who make up our senior class of 2024.”
Student speaker Arabelle Rohs said, through it all, the Class of 2024 is prepared, resilient and successful.
“Our world desperately needs improvement, but we don’t need another Einstein, or Shakespeare, or Mozart,” she said. “We already have ‘relativity’; ‘inaudible’ and ‘gossip’ are already used in the English language. Our world needs us. We need our life experiences, our mistakes, our past, and our genius to change the world for the better. We don’t need it in 20 years or in 50 years; we need it now. We are no longer the future. We are the present.”
The ZHS Class of 2024 brings the number of alumni to 2,802.
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