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the challenges they faced have never been greater, valedictorian Bode Baker said in his commencement speech.

“It is our time to experience life,” he said.

e graduating class of about 50 students earned more than $470,000 in scholarship money. Seven of them graduated with an honors diploma. e seniors put in more than 1,600 community service hours.

After turning their tassels, some have plans to attend a college or trade school. Some were preparing to enter the workforce. Others would join the military or take a gap year. ere are students with dreams of being shing guides, paramedics or engineers.

Not everyone’s path looks the same and that’s OK, Gothman emphasized.

“ e comforting thing is that there’s no right or wrong way to write this next chapter of your life,” Gothman said. “We live in a society that has created this pressure about how our chapter should be written. But as a class we are breaking the societal pressures to embark on our untouched chapters.” ey selected Je Miller, a former assistant principal at the school, who returned to speak in a blue graduation gown that had been signed by the seniors at the beginning of the school year.

Clear Creek High School has a tradition where the seniors choose the guest speaker for their graduation ceremony.

Miller reminded his former students to “keep plugging away.”

“It’s not where you start in life that matters. It’s where you nish that matters. … Don’t let your current circumstances dictate your nal outcome,” he said.

Miller shared a story about two students who attempted to go on a college visit. One had exemplary grades, and one did not. A counselor argued the student with poor grades shouldn’t bother with a college visit, Miller noted.

After he nished his speech, Miller nished the collegevisit story: “Oh, and by the way, the student that was dismissed by the counselor as unworthy of a college visit because of poor grades? He just gave a commencement speech,” Miller said. e gymnasium erupted in applause.