Be it hereby known to all that the Connecticut General Assembly offers its sincerest congratulations to Timothy Chen in recognition of being named Danberry High School class of 2022 valictorian. Your outstanding academic achievement with a cumulative 4.9565 grade average has earned you this highly esteemed honor. you well deserved. While your days in Danbury public schools have come to a close, there is no question that you will continue to excel and be a shining star as you begin the next leg of your journey for knowledge. Congratulations from the entire membership. It extends its very best wishes on this memorable occasion. Expresses the hope for continued success and it's signed by the president of the Senate, the speaker of the house and the secretary of the state. Congratulations. Can we take a picture? [Applause] One, two, three, four. [Music] I' been [Music] with my face [Music] on my shoulder.
[Music] Oh, I got eyes in the back of my head. Just in case I [Music] for my people. When the clouds roll back and the stars fill the night, that's when I'm going to stand up. Take my people with me. Together we are going to a brand new home. Far across the river. Can you hear freedom calling? Calling me to answer. And I keep on keeping on. I can feel it in my voice. Whale. [Music] Whale. Early in the morning before the sun begins to rise. [Music] We're going to start moving [Music] towards a separate line. [Music] I'm waiting through muddy waters. You know, I've got a mind [Music] and I don't mind if I lose any blood on the way to salvation. And I'll fight with the strength that I got until I die. So I'm going to stand up. Take my people with me.
Together we are going to a brand new home. Far across the river. Can you hear freedom calling? Calling me to answer. And I keep on keeping on. I can feel it in my voice. And I know what's around the bend might be hard to face cuz I just might fail, but Lord knows I try. Sure as stars fill up the sky. Stand up. Take my people with me. Together we are going to a brand new home. Far across the river, can you hear freedom calling? Calling me to answer. Going to keep on keeping on. Stand up. Take my people with me. Together we are going to a brand new home. Far across the river. Can you hear freedom calling? calling me to answer. Going to keep on keeping on. I can feel it in my bones. [Applause] I would like to introduce our student selected speaker, Marcus Lopez.
[Applause] Hi everyone. Um, I'm sorry, but before we start, I'm sorry, Mr. Donovan, I got to take a quick selfie. Um, if I could just get some smiles and cheers right here while I take it, that'd be great. Okay. All right. Perfect. Now, I'll start. I'm sorry. Good afternoon, friends, families, faculty, and most importantly, our graduating class of 2022. For those of you that don't know who I am, my name is Marcus Lopez. I've been a student within the Danbury public school system for 12 years now, and it is beyond an honor to be given the opportunity to speak in front of you all on this very special day. I would like to first take a moment to thank my parents for helping me every step of the way leading up to this day and to thank all the people that have helped all of us up to this point.
That includes Mayor Espazito, Superintendent Walston, the board of education and its chairperson chillesi, Mr. Donovan, and all the amazing wonderful teachers, administrators, and parents that aided us throughout our journey in high school. As a famous street poet and philosopher Drake once said, "We really did start from the bottom. Now it looks like the whole team's here. The last four years of my life at Danbury High have been, in simplest terms, crazy. And by crazy, I mean Kanye crazy or Will Smith at the Oscars crazy. These past years included the ultimate highs and lows that any high schooler can expect with also a fair amount of unexpected surprises like pop quizzes in my junior year Spanish class or that one time a kid climbed on the roof from C4 during lunch. I've learned more than I could have ever imagined during my high school career, both inside and outside the classroom, like how to find the derivative of a function in calculus, thanks to Miss Foster.
But more importantly, how to make a friendships and bonds that will be remembered for years to come. I've met so many amazing and wonderful people here at Danbury High that will leave a long-lasting impression on me as a person and my future. To these amazing friends I've made along the way, you all mean more to me than you could ever know. I'll forever be in debt to you for making me the person I am today. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Today, as we take our first big steps into the real world, we are we are tasked with the biggest challenge of our lives, moving on. Every day, we get closer and closer to leaving our family and friends behind to go on and start a life of our own, independent from everything that we have built here. Personally, this has been a large mental battle for me that has not gotten easier, but instead made my mind stronger.
Now, I may not be as smart as Timmy Chen or as charming and funny as Pas Moran, but I still found myself up here today in front of you all speaking. So, I guess I'll attempt to give you all a sliver of my knowledge. Now, as I was writing this speech, a rather odd scenario occurred. A honeybee flew into my room through an open window. The bee flew around looking for a place to escape while I, not so very fond of bugs, panicked. Soon enough, the bee was able to find its way out the same way it came in through my window. This prompted me to think about the one time I saw this segment on National Geographic. It was about how the worker bees of a beehive are kicked out once the newborn bees are ready to come in and start lives of their own.
These worker bees are kicked out of their hives and into the real world with little to no guidance and left to fend for themselves. This is when I had my genius revelation. I believe that all of us here today in a sense are just like that bee and the millions of other honeybees that get lost every year trying to find their way through life. We've all spent the last 18 years of our lives inside our own hives rather they be located here in Danbury or elsewhere. All of us have grown up with the help from our loved ones through the codependency on them. We sit here today voluntarily knowing that our lives are about to change for good and that we are about to find out what it means to be a true adult. As this may sound scary, I like to look at it the same way those millions of honeybees must every year.
They voluntarily exit their hives knowing they will not be able to return, but also knowing that it is time for a new generation of bees to take on their roles and strive to one day mature into the brave bees that they are today. Likewise, on this very day, we leave our lives behind here in hopes that the classes that follow will take the same steps that we do and one day aid humanity the same way we all aim to achieve. The second we step off this field today, we will be exiting our own metaphorical beehive. And although we will not be completely alone in our journey, we will still be faced with problems that require us to deal with them on our own. It's now time for us to fly out of our hives and take on this vast world on our own. It's time for us to fly through life, to come through windows that may not be the right room we are looking for, the same way that bee did the day I wrote this speech.
But when we do enter these rooms, it's important that we remember that we should not panic, but rather figure out how to escape these rooms and continue to move forward in search of the correct one. Moving on is a terrifying concept that I know maj majority of us here today are scared to even think about. To that I say do not fear. We are about to enter the most vital and crucial years of our lives and fear will only hold us back. Look at our lives like a book. Think of today is not the end to our story but the ending to only one chapter in it and the very beginning to a bright and brand new one. Remember that the world is our oyster and for those of you with shellfish allergies should be terrified. With this said, I would like to wish you all a huge congratulations and the best of luck in exiting your hives and starting new chapters.
We're going to do great. Long live the class of 2022. Thank you. [Applause] [Music] Principal Donovan will now address the graduating class of 2022 on behalf of the faculty. [Applause] Thank you, sir. Wow. What a beautiful night to celebrate the class of 22. Unless you're an Irishman who forgot to put on sunblock, then it becomes a little rough. Um, the class, this class, the class of 22, the class that spent four years at Danbury High School and 2.5 years in it. I want to start by thanking this senior class for leading DHS back from CO. While not a perfect transition, this senior class did exactly what we expected them to do. They performed. They performed in the classroom, on the fields, in the theater, in the arenas. We had a return of our DHS productions with an awesome showing of Sister Act, which saw a group of over a 100 casting crew members put on a first class production.
A special note, this production was put on with the inability to practice together for rehearsals until the very end of those rehearsal times. Sister Act showcased an uber talented group of performers that will be remembered for a long time. They rose to the occasion and they performed literally. We had a robotics team that were performed so well they traveled to the world finals in Texas and took on the most formidable competition from around the nation. This team came together as a team when coming together as a team was very difficult to coordinate coordinate. Again, they performed in athletics. This class performed. We had six teams win regular season FCA West championships. We had five teams compete in FCA championships with three winners. We had two teams claim CIAC championships. We had a cheer squad that was named to the 2022 Connecticut High School Coaches Association Team of the Year.
And finally, we had one really fast young lady win a New England championship. Great job, Alana. I love sharing the successes of the class of 22. They performed. As you've heard about how they shined in the co-curricular activities, they do the same in the classrooms as well. We are sending our students to the finest secondary institutions in the c country, sending them to the workforce ready to perform. We'll be sending them in the military ready to perform. But what really strikes me about this class and pretty much DHS as a whole is the students. As an example, I'm going to tell you a little story. So being a principal is not one of the easiest jobs in the world. Although I treasure it, it's a little rough sometimes. So I was sitting there having one of those days. You know those days when you're kind of questioning everything about what's going on, your life choices and your mere own existence.
In the middle of this, I look down and I see a book on my desk, a book I hadn't seen before. I don't know how it got there. It was a book that was bound, very nice drawings on the cover. I paused my thinking and say, "How did this get here?" And I began to read the book. As I flipped through this book, I realized it was a compilation of writings from a student on what makes them happy. Mind you, this was uh pretty much written in all Italian. So, hello Google Translate. As I begin to look at the pages, I see students wrote about the best day of their lives, a great memory or someone special. Kesley Bravo wrote about how she was thankful for her parents because they were always there for her. Alyssa Fucci wrote about the time she was in the Aderondex with her cousins, this being the best time of her life.
Janna Hackard wrote about how Mr. Datillio will be what she remembers most about DHS and the impact she had on her while she was here. My good friend Big John Martinez, you owe me a dollar wrote about having his mother with him on senior night for football and how that was one of the best days of his life. These passages went on and on, each one detailing how relationships were most important things in their life. No one mentioned an iPhone. No one mentioned clothes. No one mentioned any material object. It was relationships with teachers, families, friends is what they remember. These are the important things in life. Maintaining relationships will make everything for you better. Remembering to say thank you, remembering to say please, and most of all, remembering to say I love you to those special people. Thank you, Miss Datillo and her Italian three and four class for making this book and giving me a copy of it.
Thank you to the students who wrote the notes in the back of the pages to me very thoughtful and it's greatly appreciated. It made me realize in that moment when I needed it most that when things get tough and you're feeling a certain way about things, there are many, many, many things to be thankful for and it's usually the people around you. As a tradition I started six years ago. Today I gave Hu a carnation on your seat. This carnation is a unique gift that's not meant for you. The carnation is intended for someone who has helped you through life, someone who made a connection with, someone who supported you, someone who you feel deserves it. This can be a teacher, sibling, friend, grandparent, parent. But I need you to take a moment sitting there on this beautiful day and think about someone who has helped you get here today.
When you see that person, you give them this flower and you tell them why they're special to you. It makes a difference to everybody. As an example, for this year, I need to break my carnation up and give it to equal parts to Kathy Odow, our head of school nursing, and the nursing staff at DHS. The task put in front of them these past two years may only have been witnessed by a few, but the workload and professionalism shown throughout this time had been incredible. At the height of the pandemic, it was a 24-hour a day, 7-day a week job. Emails, texts, all on weekends, late at night, just didn't stop. For their effort, I would like to thank and if we could give a round of applause for our nursing staff, I greatly appreciate it. You were amazing and like the class sitting in front of you, you performed.
Finally, to the class of 22, you came back and did what many thought you wouldn't be able to do. You performed. I am extremely proud of each of you. I wish you the best of luck. And as the mayor said, once you're a Hatter, you're always a Hatter. I love you guys. I would like to introduce our Danbury High School senior class president, Paz Moran. [Applause] Hello everyone, I'm Paz. I would like to give a big thank you to Mayor Espazito, board of education chairperson Chilleski, Superintendent Walston, members of the board of education, principal Donovan, faculty, parents, friends, members of the class of 2022, and my YouTube followers. I am absolutely honored to be here with you today as your Jambury High School class of 2022 valadictorian, I mean class president. Anyways, how many of you remember the start of your educational journey? I don't want to be corny or sound like a Hallmark card, but really, do you remember where it all started?
Cuz I do. Fall 2009, Great Plain Elementary School, Miss Cali Notic's class. She had us line up and hold hands with the person next to us so we can learn how to walk in single file. Kimberly was next to me. I was so jealous of her because she was wearing bright pink Twinkle Toes lightup shoes. I held her hand tightly. Miss Cali noticed held Dylan's hand, the line leader, and led us to the playground. In first grade, I was waiting single file in line to speak with my teacher. I peed my pants waiting in line. Miss Owens sent another girl, Isabelle, down with me to the nurse's office. And as disgusted as Isabelle was, she held my hand tightly the entire way down. Second grade, we took our first reading test. Well, kind of. Miss Martino put her hand over mine, guiding my fingers through the sentences.
In third grade, we were allowed on the monkey bars during recess. Life is getting risky now. Only rule, hold on tightly. I slipped on the second one. But of the 10 students surrounding me, all of them offered me a hand up. I shook my elementary school principal's hand, Miss Smith, as I received my mini diploma. And the grew the grip now grew less tight, but not enough to realize. Middle school lockers. All I've ever wanted. I've been waiting my entire life for this. I watched the teacher demonstrate how to open the lock, but I just don't get it. It's okay, though. Her hands rushed over to do it for me right away. Sophomore year is tough. You know, you got chemistry and an English class this year. They're making me actually write, but Miss Caramo's hands write all the notes on the board, and my hands copy exactly.