Black Mississippi student forced to share valedictorian title with white student who had lower GPA

[MineralMan]

36. Way back in 1963, at my high school, which had a senior

class of 104 students, I was tied with a friend of mine for valedictorian. We both had 4.0 GPAs, and there was no weighting back then. We both participated in a number of extracurricular activities, student government, etc. As graduation day approached, the school was trying to decide who would be valedictorian. I didn't care, and neither did the girl in my class who was tied with me. We were good friends, besides. Finally, the school admins gave up and decided on co-valedictorians. But the speech. What to do? My friend and I suggested that we both give the speech. We got together and wrote something, which we would give as a dialog, standing at the mic together.

So, that's what we did. The 15 minutes went by in a flash, and the speech we wrote had lots of laugh lines in it, so the audience wasn't bored with yet another inspirational speech by some kid who had little idea about life. We wrote it as a dialog between us about our local school days and the uncertainty of what came next. The audience laughed and applauded and we sat back down in our gowns.

Valedictory speeches aren't all that important, really. Being valedictorian isn't all that important, really, either. I do not remember that ever coming up after that graduation day. It didn't matter. Neither did who was the valedictorian or were the valedictorians. None of that mattered to anyone, including my friend and I. We played it for laughs.

My friend ended up being a neurosurgeon. I ended up being a freelance writer and flibbertigibbet. We both ended up happy with our lives.