TUPPER LAKE - When she was in sixth grade, Samantha Durfey wanted to be a writer, but now that she's graduating from high school, she wants to become a scientist.
It doesn't matter what the dream is, though, said Durfey, who will head to the University of Alabama to study microbiology. The important thing is that she's going to follow it.
In her valedictory speech at the Tupper Lake Middle/High School graduation ceremony Saturday, Durfey told her 73 classmates that they shouldn't let the fear of failure stop them from following their dreams.
"I know we can do anything we set our minds to," Durfey said. "Don't let go of your childhood dreams."
Teacher Kate Bennett, the ceremony's guest speaker, told the students that they will have to work hard in the future. But she said that since their successes will be determined by how hard they work and how much they reach to meet their goals, they will be able to take full ownership of their successes.
Bennett also advised graduates to take boring days and grunt work and see them as an opportunity to step outside the lines of the ordinary and find something new or fun.
She told them to never forget the kid inside them, saying that they can still have fun as adults if they remember to keep that kid present.
"Your life is just beginning," Bennett said. "Buckle up and get ready for the ride."
Pam Martin, who is retiring from her position as Tupper Lake Middle/High School principal at the end of the month, compared her position as what she called an "adult graduate" with the students who were graduating Saturday.
The students thanked Martin and gave her a bouquet of flowers she could barely fit her arms around.
Martin told the students that she's looking into her options for after her retirement. She advised them that they should be open to taking chances, ask what's the worst that could happen, dare to make mistakes and say "yes."
"'Yes' keeps you young," Martin said.
Salutatorian Amanda Moeller, who is headed to Cazenovia College in Cazenovia in the fall, echoed those sentiments by closing her speech with a Mark Twain quote: "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
Moeller touted her class as the best one ever, with the best series of senior pranks, including stealing the teachers' parking spaces, a water-balloon raid and encasing Martin's car in plastic wrap.
"It has been a pleasure growing up and experiencing life with all of you," Moeller told her classmates.
Also at the graduation ceremony, district Superintendent Seth McGowan presented Eileen Hayes with the Outstanding Educator of the Year award. Hayes is an early reading intervention teacher at the L.P. Quinn Elementary School.
