Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Vernonia's voice. (Vernonia, OR) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (June 15, 2017)
Johnathan Levenseller & Jessika Goodman Jarod Shaw Alex West Jackhenry Masog Gage Linhares Amanda-Rose Sicard Cassidy Whitton Dylan Shay Bailey Morrison & Shaina Anderson Jessica Stringfield McKenzie Willard & Jessica Williams Merce Patricio Dylan Terry & Yoonae Kweon Payton Wolf Romaine Regache Michael Timm & Allissa Terrill Class President Autumn Sorenson Guest Speaker Malin Campbell Megan Rice Chase Tolonen Principal Nate Underwood La Korn and Auf Weidersehen Howdy Sup guys We’re Pongwiwatt Kookiwattana and Kathy. We’re representing the foreign exchange students of 2017. We were wondering a lot about what the goal of this speech is. We wanted to make it about our time here, but in a funny way, and we also wanted to give you something more, which is where the global aspect of our group comes in. So instead of making this 10 minutes of how grateful we are, we’re going to tell you about our year here in Vernonia from different perspectives. We went through good and bad times together, and this journey was not perfect. But we learned a lot and had a good time. We are 11 students from 8 different nations on 3 different continents separated by the 7 seas all over the world. Together we spent a total of 3,129 days here. We participated in 7 different sports. We rode donkeys in trash bags. We ran a marathon. We went cliff jumping. We watched all 8 Harry Potter movies in one go. We painted the red bus line. I personally learned how to make top ramen at 5am in a frying pan with no water. If that doesn’t teach you anything is possible I don’t know what will. We did a polar bear plunge on New Year’s Eve. We planted 1,500 trees in forestry. We got our first school lunch on the very last day of school. And people were very interested in our cultures, too, for example our languages. Well, mostly the swear words, but you gotta start somewhere, right? I think it’s safe to say that we all changed a lot here. Before I came here, I was worried if I would find friends. Little did I know that all of Germany’s craziest people would end up in the same town. I mean, what are the odds? So thanks for putting up with us! Doing all those things, we learned a lot. Team building. Discipline. Time and money management. Independence. The value of friends. How to use a chainsaw. Not to eat a dozen donuts all by yourself. How to get money out of an ATM. How to run a washing machine. The struggle is real for some of us. How to pronounce and spell each other’s names. Pong- wi-watt koo-kit-wat-ta-na. There you go. Now our year is coming to an end. The first one of us will be leaving on the 8th of June. The journey is almost over. The goal was, still is, the journey. In just a few days we’ll all be leaving Vernonia, and this is where we’re exactly in the same place as the Seniors. We’re going to define our dreams and, simultaneously our future. Will Smith once said “if you’re not making someone else’s life better, you’re wasting your time,” so today, we, the foreign exchange students, want to give you, everyone in this gym, the inspiration to make someone else’s life better. To make everyone’s life better on this planet. We know that we can do it, as a global community. This town, this school is moving towards that goal every single day, simply by making us a part of your families. Graduation is a really big event in life. So, what’s the next milestone? For many, it’s probably college graduation, marriage or the start of a family. And when we reach that milestone, I hope for all of us that were going to be content with what we achieved. Because today, looking back at the ten months I spent in this community, I am content. I wish the same thing to all of us when we reach the next milestone. Altogether we just want to say that we had a wonderful year here, and we owe that to a lot of people. We want to thank or host families, the families Hennessy, Davis, Lindauer, Rethwill, Gump,Tierney, Beamish, Whiteman and finally Ward. We want to thank Cathy Ward, Teresa Petersen and Dusty, our local coordinators. We want to thank all of our coaches, especially Lord Byron Benjamin Brown the third and Coach Barnes. You will always have a special place in our hearts. We want to thank all of the teachers, office keepers, lunch ladies, janitors, bus drivers and all the others that work in school and helped us so much throughout the year. Special thanks here goes to Ms. Safier for all of her commitment towards the exchange students, and also for practicing this speech with us and making sure you halfway understand what we’re saying. We especially want to thank Kailia, our foreign exchange representative. You’re amazing and we love you so much! So thanks y’all! You’re an amazing community. Pongwiwatt Kookiwattana ~ Thailand Kathy Will~ Germany