Hi everyone!

First, I want to say a few personal thank you’s and also at this time acknowledge Ms. Henderson, who was an integral part of Logan Park and our prize givings.

First, my group teacher, Mr. Enright. I have never once doubted that if I ever asked, you would come up to bat for me. Thank you for always telling me to slow down, for listening, and really everything you have done for me over the last five years. I will send you a friend request on Facebook as soon as I get home tonight.

Thank you to Ms. Ashby for making Annelise and my Showquest dream come true this year. It was an unforgettable experience.

Thank you Harry, and Olivia and Simon, as well as the myriad of other students who have worked so hard to make this year amazing. I feel really lucky to have done this with you. It has not been easy, but I think we have managed to pull it off.

Finally thank you to Ms. Mouat and Mr. Hills for all of their help and support, especially in the last few weeks. I appreciate how much you have worked to make this year and today something that hopefully has been and will continue to be special to all of you.

Unfortunately I don’t have a great piece of advice on ‘where to from here’ for you, but this is what I’ve come up with.

There is a song I love by Stars called ‘Your Ex Lover Is Dead’. The general breakup theme is less applicable here, but there is a lyric that has always stood out to me.

“I’m not sorry I met you, I'm not sorry it’s over.”

There are quite a few people out in the world that say high school was the best time of their life. I hope for all of us that that is not true. That’s not to say that the last five years have not been lovely, but the universal high school experience, described in thousands of novels and movies and songs and shows, is that it is a mess.

Everything feels huge, because we are all wrapped up in this cocoon of people that we’ve been to school with for five or seven, or even thirteen years. These people know too much! They remember every embarrassing thing you’ve done! But they also remember all of the good you’ve done.

And while this backlog of knowledge makes some things harder, it also makes high school incredibly special.

By chance, or realistically, the choice made by our families to live in Dunedin, this is the group of people that we have shared this experience with. We have all touched each other’s lives in some way. Some ways as huge as falling in love for the first time, or as small as making awkward accidental eye contact in the hallway one time in year nine. Some of these things will stick with us forever, and some of them we have already forgotten.

Life goes on now for us. People will study more, get jobs, get married and have kids. And we will touch thousands more lives in our time. But this specific group of people have Logan Park as something to share, and as something that has also touched our lives, and I think that is incredibly special.

Thank you!