1949 – Salutatory
Address by Marty Burnett
Friends, members of the board of education, teachers, parents and classmates
On behalf of the graduating class of 1949 of the Ryan high school, it gives me
great pleasure to greet and to bid you welcome to these exercises which mark so
fittingly the close of the course of study which we have been pursuing for the
past several years.
It has been and will continue to be a source of great inspiration to us
that you have been so genuinely interested in our progress from month to month,
and year to year, and that you still care enough to come here at this time and
see for yourselves the completion of our work and our preparation to commence
larger undertakings and higher studies.
So we thank you for expecting a great deal of us, and for showing us you
had every confidence we would make good.
Our diplomas will help to reassure us, and we trust they will reassure
you, that “Well begun is half done.”
In welcoming you at this moment, we would indeed be remiss if we did not
pay our respects to the men and women and the young people of yesteryears. If it had not been for the sacrifices
and the labors of men and women who have believed in youth and education and the
things waiting to be done by those trained to do them – our educational
facilities would not be what they are today.
We are deeply and seriously conscious of what has been done for us, of
the tools which have been placed in our hands of the associations which have
been permitted us, and of the privileges which have been ours.
We ask that you will be lenient and not expect too much of us. We hope that our ambitions may be
realized and that we shall not be discouraged by the disappointments bound to
meet us along the pathway of life.
We trust that looking at the examples you have set for us of splendid
citizenship, high courage, real achievement and integrity and progressiveness,
we too shall reach the estate of manhood and womanhood prepared to do for others
what you have done so well for us.
We welcome you here from the depths of our hearts. We are leaving Ryan high school as
students but we shall be accompanied by the cheering memory of this gathering
and all it stands for.
We shall someday build records which you and the old school we have known
and loved so long shall be proud.
Source: The Ryan Leader, June 3,
1949