PHS graduates 145, emphasizes connections

PALMER — Speaking to a gym full of seniors, parents, teachers and well-wishers, Wednesday, Timothy Rockey took a moment to single out his mother.

“She’s not here for just me,” Rockey said. “If I had failed to graduate, she would still be in attendance.”

She would have attended the Palmer High School graduation ceremony for the kids she helped through elementary school or met on the sports fields, he said. This kind of support defines Palmer, Rockey said, and Palmer is the one thing all of his graduating classmates have in common.

“Just about everyone in this crowd is going to clap and cheer for more than one person,” he said.

Palmer High principal Wolfgang Winter said that this graduation was particularly special to him.

“I own two children here in front of me,” he told the crowd, so large it almost didn’t fit in the school’s darkened gymnasium.

The principal also took a moment to try and define the class of 2011.

“This group standing in front of me may be the brightest group ever to come out of Palmer High School. Or they may not be,” he said, giving the same treatment to attributes like athleticism and physical beauty.

One thing he’s pretty sure of, though, is that these kids have done a lot of community service.

“They are among the most — if not the most — giving group of graduates ever to leave Palmer High School,” he said.

Physics teacher Michael Fry began his keynote speech in Dutch, then asked everyone who had received or sent a text message during the ceremony to stand, bringing a healthy percentage of the crowd to its feet. He guessed that most of the messages were “meaningless jabber.”

“We are in fact wrapped up in ourselves,” he said, urging the students not to confuse immediacy for importance and to do away with the unimportant in their lives.

Stefan Marty, another graduate who spoke, urged his classmates to ponder big decisions they will now face.

“I really don’t want to come across as this self-righteous chubby hipster up here,” he said. “I’m just together enough to know I’m not all that together.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.