CHELSEA MONTES • Provided to Great Basin Sun
Co-valedictorian Conner Fecht addresses the Class of 2024.
Last Saturday evening, 33 Pershing County High School students stood together for the last time as classmates. They are now proud members of the Pershing County High School’s 107th graduating class — the Class of 2024.
Conner Fecht and Jessica Gonzalez were co-valedictorians. Fecht will attend Eastern Oregon University for a Bachelor's in Nursing. Gonzalez will study premed at the University of Nevada-Reno. Each of them wrote and delivered a commencement speech.
Guest speaker Ben Halverson speaks to the graduates.
Gonzalez’s speech was bilingual. She outlined her plans to become “la primera doctera de La Familia Gonzalez,” as her family listened from the front row of the high school gym.
“No matter your story, you are enough,” she told her classmates. “To my classmates who do not have the blessing of seeing your parents here today, know that if nobody else is, I am proud of you.”
Fecht thanked the people who inspired him and the rest of the grads to excel. In closing, he encouraged his classmates to look into the crowd and make eye contact with people who made a difference in their lives.
The PCHS Class of 2024 stands together in the high school gym.
“Now say thank you and mean it,” he said.
The grads chose Ben Halverson as their guest speaker. They know him as a coach, high school social studies teacher, mentor and family man.
“If there is just one thing you remember from the words I say, please let it be this,” he told them. “Make the choice to believe that you can. Everything begins with this. There is a saying, ‘If you believe you can’t, you’re right.”
Co-valedictorian Jessica Gonzalez leads the class in flipping their tassels from left to right to signify moving on to higher education or the workforce.
“Believing that you can isn’t to say you must have the ability right in that moment. What it is, is understanding that you can learn and develop into something tomorrow that you may not yet be today.”
“So, Class of 2024, as you embark on the next level of your life’s journey, regardless of where that may take you, confidently be you, no matter who you are; and never forget that as a Mustang and a graduate, you have already shown that you possess the tools to become whatever you have the courage to imagine.”