For those of you who know me, you know that I am a very last- minute type of person. Teachers know that I’m one of the last to finish a long term assignment. Coaches and teammates know I’m always one of the last to get on the bus to go to an away game. Friends know that I’m always the last to know exactly what’s going on. A couple weeks ago, I heard I was going to give a speech at graduation. Instead of waiting until the last minute, I got all my thoughts together and even started putting some of my ideas down on paper. In a couple days, I had a rough outline. I had all of that done before last Wednesday, which was, for seniors, the last day of school. On that Thursday, I returned to the school late in the afternoon to finish a few things that needed to be done before I graduated and met up with one of my teachers before I left. Imagine my surprise when, as we were discussing our speeches for graduation, that teacher told me that she had written the exact same speech as I, right down to a striking resemblance in the title. Well, we made a compromise. She would keep her speech and I’d throw mine out and start over. Again, after all my friends had finished a large portion of their speeches, I was caught staring at a blank sheet of paper. The last to begin.

Being last is surrounded with an understandable negativity. If you are last to turn in a long term assignment, you usually end up with a rushed paper that isn’t up to your standard of writing. If you are last on the van to a sports event you sometimes get left behind. And when you are the last to know what is going on, you often miss important details that you needed to know. Being last, however, isn’t quite as bad as everyone thinks it is. If it was that bad, why does everyone always try to have the last word in an argument? Why do people try to leave a LASTing impression? God even says, “He who puts himself last, shall be first in my kingdom.”

I’d lake you all to take a good look at the class of 1999 sitting before you today. Yes, we are the last, but we are certainly the best class of the millenium.

We close the past 1000 years knowing that we are the last. No one before us, nor after us can say that they were or will be the last class of the 20^th century. No one else can say that they are the last class of this decade. No one else can say that they graduated in 1999. Looking at it that way, we see that being last isn’t so bad after all.

Our sincere thanks to those that made 1999 the best for us. First of all, I’d like to thank God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for bringing us together this day. He blessed us with parents, who put us through Lutheran East and helped us to continue growing in our faith even after we graduated from our respective grade schools. Our grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and friends also have supported us in our journey through high school and have also helped our faith to grow. That service has been invaluable to us, and has helped us stand up to adversity and temptation through the hardest years of our lives.

Next, I’d like to thank the faculty. For those of you who do not know, every year Mr. Gast gives the farewell chapel to the seniors, in which he addresses each one of us individually and thanks us for something he remembered about us during our four years at Lutheran East. I would like to give something back to him as well as the rest of the faculty for guiding and helping us during those years. What do I remember about the faculty at Lutheran East?

Mr. Doebler- I remember you coming in to teach some of us as freshman, an algebra class that none of us really could get the hang of.

Miss Dolan- I remember last year when you came in as a student teacher and your first assignment was to teach honors English 11 all about Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. You were very brave.

Mrs. Gentz and Mrs. Riske- our secretaries who never failed to be there if we needed a helping hand.

Mrs. Harrison- I admire you for your ability to live every day through third hour Spanish.

Mr. Heins- Your love of art and devotion to it are truly unique. I only hope that one day I will be able to put that devotion into my work.

Pastor Hetzner- I will probably never forget the powerful message you gave last Sunday at Baccalaureate.

Mrs. Hyska- I remember you when you were Mrs. Rogers at St. Peters teaching my seventh grade class a couple of French lessons.

Mr. Justice- How could anyone forget the gum cup? You gave it so much importance that we though you’d gone insane. You cared for it so much, it was almost as if you were caring for a child.

Sgt. Kunst- No matter where you were or what you were doing, you never failed to lose your keys. We’d find them in a folder in you file cabinet, or locked away safely on a hook in the supply room.

Mr. Lemke- Your caring words of encouragement will never be forgotten.

Mr. Machemer- As Freshmen, some of us came to you in the mixed chorus unable to sing, let alone stay on key. Now, thanks to your guidance in music, some of us are leaving in the Concert choir and even in Chambers.

Dr. Olson- Thank you for letting me help out in general biology this year as I refreshed in my mind some of the things I will need to know to study for my major in college.

Mrs. Sadler- You pulled our JV softball team together, shaping it into a team that scared even the best of the competition. By the end of the season we even pulled off -one- win.

Mr. Scheuer- Your directing expertise in the play really made a difference. Thank you for a successful year in Drama.

Mrs. S- Your guidance has been invaluable to us these past couple years.

Mrs. Smith- Who fell in love with the beanie baby “Snort the Bull” at the end of last year and has been collecting ever since. Her collection is now even bigger than mine.

Mr. Sprow- You were succeeding to teach us Chemistry when we were sophomores. The problem came when we failed to listen.

Mrs. Todd- If we ever needed something in the library, you knew right where to find it.

Mr. Tuomi- None of us will ever forget all the stories you told in class. We may not remember the content of all of them, but we will remember that you always had a story for every subject that came up in Theology.

Finally, Mr. Gast- You have blessed our school in so many ways it is impossible to pick just one thing. Thank you for continuing to be a Christ centered administrator at Lutheran East.

I would also like to thank my class. We came together at Lutheran East as total strangers and now, we have become friends. The graduating class of 1999.