Local Seniors Graduate With Honors (Dayton)

DAYTON – Thirty-four new adults venture forth into the world of adulthood this week. They are high-school graduates, award-winning scholars and high-caliber athletes.

They are the Dayton High School class of 2015; and they are Bulldog proud. Last Saturday afternoon they received their diplomas, performed their speeches and tossed their caps into the air.

They have completed all the many rituals of growing up in the Touchet Valley and are ready to take on the world.

"Not to brag, but I think that this is one of the best and brightest classes to graduate from Dayton High School," Class President and Salutatorian Ian Smay told a packed gymnasium on Saturday afternoon. "I mean look, we had to have co-valedictorians because nothing separated two kids with perfect GPAs."

The friends, family members and community supporters chuckled, but the assertion was made in earnest. Matthew Warren and Caitlyn Robins were both honored as valedictorians this year. They weren't the only grads honored either. The granting of scholarships went on for over an hour as student after student was called up to accept his or her award.

All said, DHS grads received thousands of dollars to give them a boost into their future studies and careers – awards made for scholarship, community service, athletic performance and the support of local agriculture.

"We were told by our teachers that we were the most competitive class in recent history here at Dayton," Smay said during his speech. "I'm sure that we will continue to make this community proud."

This year's senior class boasted state leaders in clubs such as FBLA and FFA as well as a wheat ambassador and Washington aerospace scholar, and several recently certified nursing assistants who studied at SEA-TECH in Walla Walla, Smay said.

They have well and truly made a strong start in life, and interim Secondary Principal Kate Wenzl spoke for many when she expressed her pride in this graduating class during the ceremony. She also offered encouragement, using a quote from the inventor Thomas Edison, "the light-bulb guy":

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. I am not discouraged because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward. Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

Wenzl went on to entreat the seniors to take these words to heart – to "fail forward." "We are asking our graduates to never give up," she said.

Hard work and memory building, that's the stuff that makes a graduate.

"We've come a long way since our first days as freshmen," Smay said to his classmates. "I know I have made memories with people I love that I will never forget."

Congratulations, Dayton High School class of 2015.