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

[MineralMan]

78. I'm sure my parents thought it was an honor.

So did I, I suppose, but by then, I was so ready to leave that small town and go out looking at the world that I didn't think much about it, really. The same was true for my friend, the co-valedictorian. When we were planning our dialog-style shared speech, we decided to focus on the great times we all had had. Just about everyone in that graduating class had been our classmates since kindergarten. There were countless funny stories from those 12 years of school, so we just told some of those.

I knew the names of every classmate of mine, and had some sort of interaction with all of them. We were all graduating from high school. Who got the highest grades didn't really seem that important. So, we didn't do some sort of self-congratulatory thing, but just remembered our school years and told amusing stories about us, our fellow students, our teachers and anything else that struck us.

We especially focused our attention on the very best and favorite teachers in that school system and gave them the credit for all of us succeeding. We also mentioned the bus drivers, janitors and cafeteria ladies by name. I even fessed up to an outrageous prank I had pulled that people from that class remember, even today. That valedictory dialog was a trip through our experience in that small town's school system, and focused only on the good, the funny and the memorable stuff. Then, we sat down and waited our turn in the diploma line. The next day, we started the rest of our lives.

High school is only important while you're attending it. Then, it is overtaken by real life.