Jackson County High School - Aiyukpa Yearbook (Walden, CO)

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geese - Salutatory Marjorie H azen INSPIRATION For several Years we have been day-dreaming about graduation. Always it has seemed that it would never really come to us. Still we worked toward that end, saw others graduate in classes ahead of us, and looked forward to the day that we would be the ones to welcome parents and friends to our graduating exercises. The hour has arrived now and it is my pleasure, on behalf of the Senior Class of 1943, to welcome you to our graduation. The very thought of graduating from high school and being on our own creates within us an inspiration. Inspiration denotes something awaking, something quicken- ing, something to be expected in high artistic achievement. Inspiration is something of which the youth of the land graduating from high schools today would like to have more. It is true, perhaps, that all youth has wanted inspiration since the beginning of time. It is even more true that the youth of today desires a sense of values, a sense of the true worth of life even to a greater extent than any other generation. Most of us have grown up in a period of world-sweeping events. Most of us realized the confusion of the great depressiong most of us are being im- pressed each day with the fact that we are coming out of school in the most critical period of American history. The far-reaching effects of the present great struggle for renewal of the rights of men is an inspiration for anyone. Deep in the heart of every boy or girl lies an ambition to become great. Especially is this true as more and more is learned of those immortal names that have been handed down to us with all their histories of great and heroic achievements. To study the noble deeds and great advancements of others is to long to do something equally as grand ourselves, and we are inspired with a burning desire of some opportunity for the display of heroism or strength of character. We would all like to immortalize our names for future generations, but when we stop to think about how to do it we are lost. We see how far short we are of what seems necessary to do those things. Every- thing seems to be against us. It is discouraging and again and again the call of youth is Give us this day an inspiration. 1943 151111 I-'orly-1

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geese our ideas of time and distance. There will be no barriers of sea or land. This is not a vision, it is a reality. We who live in the United States know not what it means to have our land torn by falling bombs: our coastlines and harbors full of ruined and sinking ships, and our skies dimmed by pilots with their bombers, fighter planes, and transports. On Africa's sun- baked battlefield, and Russia's bloody lines, are soldiers, not just Americans but of every race, looking forward to that day of victory and to a successful post-war program. Classmates, and the youth of America, no other graduating classes have graduated during our lives which face as critical a period as the one ahead of us. No other class has faced as many opportunities and responsibilities in the life ahead. No other class has to consider so carefully along what lines it should work. We are the ones who must respond and fulfill the dream and hope of the men in the battle fronts. Eagerly we stretch out our hands to help bring back the peace and security which is now gone. Let us prepare to secure the four freedoms: freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech, and to protect them in the future. With the closing of this occasion today when we cease to exist as a high school class, it becomes my duty to say farewell. We say farewell to the Board of Education. Thank you for your wisely applied wisdom. To the members of the faculty, we say farewell. They have guided and developed our individual possibilities, not only as our teachers but as our friends. Although we will not say farewell to our parents, we wish to thank you for mak- ing our public school system possible. We hope that our benefits will repay you for your work. Classmates, we may bid each other farewell but there will be no farewell between us. As we each go our different ways in life, we will always be held together by the common possession of the ideals and principles taught during our four years in this school. 1943 I LIP I'o1'ijf viqlfl

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grew No matter what one sets out to accomplish there must be a period of preparation. An apprentice at any trade must scrve many years mastering the simplest principles of his work before he may attempt the greater things to which he aspires. America, like every other thing, has had its period of preparation. From the time the Pilgrims faced fear and cold and hunger on the shore of this continent, through the Revolutionary War and Civil War, America has been steadily growing better. It had to pass through many trying times, but it came through. Those times passed, and so will the one in which we now graduate from school. America will again know a day when boys and girls can love and marry and not be torn apart, when America will not only be the land we know and love, but a land of 1'lCh61' promise than man today has ever dreamed. In this there is an inspiration for today. America is the nearest approach to a perfect democracy which any nation has achieved. We see here a nation in which every man may say what he believes and write what he wants. He may expect justice under laws which guarantee him the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He may choose the vocation he wishes to follow and may enter freely into that field knowing that his success depends in a large measure upon his own ability. No one contends that ours is a perfect democracy. In the years to follow this war it must be made nearer to perfection and national boundaries must be erased in the application of this principle. In this there is an inspiration worthy of men of all ages. 1943 I if I Ifly