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Schools

Williams 'Slams' Message Home for Harford Tech

Harford Tech graduated 235 students on Friday night.

From music to slam poetry to MC Hammer to advice on senior week, graduation had it all on Friday night.

But underneath the excitement at the Amoss Center were a series of heartfelt  messages from student and guest speakers, directed at the Class of 2011 and at parents.

Both valedictorian Katelynn Deibel and class president Anna Spiropoulos spoke of the “unbreakable bonds” formed during their four years at Harford Tech, with Spiropoulos saying, “We are family through and through.”

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Deibel echoed these sentiments as well, saying, “We did it together, and no one can take that away,” but also focused on the future, of how the friends made and the skills learned at the school will help the graduates. Deibel told her class to “step outside your comfort zone” and to go after the future, using quotations from Sarah Ban Breathnach and Harriet Tubman to reach her classmates.

Elizabeth Rathbun, a 2005 graduate, who works for the Seton Hall athletic department doing graphic designs, was the recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award. She spoke of how she thought she was done with her trade when she left Harford Tech, but that it returned to her, and similar things would for the graduates she was speaking to.

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The program was kicked off with short speeches from: Principal Charles G. Hagan, Board of Education member Alysson L. Krchnavy, Sen. Barry T. Glassman, Delegate Susan K. McComas, Robert B. Thomas, Jr. from the county government office, County Council President William K. Boniface and councilman Richard C. Slutzky.

Glassman and Hagan drew laughs from the crowd as they mentioned MC Hammer in their talks and Boniface gave the seniors his top three tips for senior week in Ocean City.

But this was all a warm-up for commencement speaker Buzz Williams, the Assistant Supervisor of Student Services in the Harford County Public School System. Instead of giving a speech, Williams gave three tributes: one to the parents, one to the teachers and one to the graduates.

For his tribute to the parents, Williams rewrote Anita Renfroe’s “Mom Song” to include fathers and performed it. He upped the ante for teachers, rewriting slam poet Taylor Mali’s “What Teachers Make” to make it appropriate for the audience. Finally, for the graduates, he performed another version titled “What Tech Students Do,” where he was joined by graduates Brandon Dean and Keandre “Dre” Jones, two members of the Harford Tech Slam Team that helped with the rewrite.

For the technical high school, Williams summed up the end of “What Tech Students Do” with a challenge to the gradutes.

“We are the engines that drive America,” Williams said from a Tech graduate’s perspective. “Now what about you?”

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