\n\t\t\t\tYIJIA ZHAO \nValedictorian \n\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\nThe theme was taken from a song called Home, which the students also sang during the ceremony.<\/p>\n
Yijia Zhao was named the valedictorian of the graduating class.<\/p>\n
The salutatorian, or as he joked in his speech, \u201cfirst place loser,\u201d was Jun Seo Allen Park.<\/p>\n
Following the top two students were Emily Dewitt, Joann Bandales, Hyun Bin Hwang, Katrina Punzulan, Ye Young Kim, Sarah Kim, Jin Pyo Jeon, and Yvonne Indalecio.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s keynote speaker was Lt. Gov. Ralph Torres, who reminded students that this was their \u201clast day of class.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s it, pancit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut your days of learning are not done, \u201c he added. \u201cYour responsibility to learn\u201d continues in work, college, and in relationships, he said.<\/p>\n
Despite being called \u201cyoung, na\u00efve, or inexperienced,\u201d there is \u201cno measurement for where you can go,\u201d Torres said, noting that he was also called those things during his run for lieutenant governor.<\/p>\n
Calling his chances of delivering their keynote address as a lieutenant governor \u201cunlikely,\u201d Torres described growing up with a mother who worked two jobs with a family of five boys who lived in one small room.<\/p>\n
He said when he moved to the U.S mainland at age 12, he was shorter, darker, and admitted he was bullied.<\/p>\n
\u201cWords matter,\u201d he said. But \u201cfor those people who tell you, you can\u2019t do something,\u201d give them four words, he said, \u201cI can do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The seniors then echoed the governor, saying, \u201cI can do this\u201d as a crowd. They then turned to each other and said, \u201cYou can do this\u201d together.<\/p>\n
Education leaders also commended the students getting through their four years in high school.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet your success serve as an inspiration for students who come after\u2026Let your drive\u201d be \u201cthe means to provide opportunities for others,\u201d Board of Education chair Herman T. Guerrero said.<\/p>\n
He told the seniors they were entering a \u201cvastly new journey\u201d and wished them well.<\/p>\n
Education Commissioner Dr. Rita Sablan urged students to \u201ccherish what has been given to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSaipan is going to be here and the CNMI is going to be here waiting for you, because we know you can come back\u201d and give to your community, she said.<\/p>\n
The senior\u2019s class song, Home, was a 2014 song by Naughty Boy. It goes: \u201cIt\u2019s been a good year, will be a long day, Before we lay our heads down to rest, and if those tears come rolling down, I\u2019ll pull you close to me, and tell you we\u2019ll be back there again. Won\u2019t be a long time, won\u2019t be a long time\u2026’Till we get back home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saipan Southern High School graduated about 143 seniors Tuesday afternoon, with the graduating class choosing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":203970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1222,5299,1624,5300],"class_list":["post-203956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-education-commissioner-dr","tag-joann-bandales","tag-sshs","tag-yijia-zhao"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}