Author Keely McCaffrey

Snoopy once said, “Why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn't work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. Then we would have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos.” Unfortunately, we have come here today to say Goodbye. Goodbye to waking up at six thirty every morning just to get to class on time. Goodbye to hours spent in the classroom learning and even more hours spent in the lounge playing cards with our friends. Goodbye to what we know but Hello to the future.

Webutuck has been such a huge part of our lives for the past twelve years. No other place will be the home of memories such as Prom, Friday Night Basketball games and now Graduation. Those walls hold stories of our first friendships, our first chances at responsibility and our first visions of success. Here we have learned to win, to lose, and to try again. When else will the Senior Boys dress up as cheerleaders to root for the Girls in a Powder-puff Football Game? Where will we be able to spend all day getting dressed up so we can dance all night with our friends? Where else will we be able to walk down a hallway and find comfort in each face we see?

We have gone through High School together letting Lil Wayne’s songs define our adolescence or watching Michael Phelps swim his way to eight Gold Medals while picturing ourselves achieving similar glory. We’ve watched as our country elected the first African American President into office and a few of us even voted. Often we have been told that we are the future but now as we look on to what is ahead of us, the future is here. We are what we make of ourselves right now.

I realized now that our class is not leaving. We all may be going our separate ways in September but we have left so much behind. The trophy case will remain with plaques and awards of our accomplishments on the field, our many academic accomplishments will be kept in school records and our class picture, if it makes the wall, will be a symbol of who we were and what we had at Webutuck. No matter what happens in the future Webutuck will always be here to remind us of the lives we lived.

Finally, I would like to thank the teachers and faculty, our friends, our family, the administration and our community for making our High School experience memorable.

And to the Webutuck Class of 2009 remember:

Don’t Cry because it’s over, laugh because it happened-Dr. Seuss