Dear Students,
During the nine years I spent as Principal of Crossland High
School I had a chance to know thousands of you. Those of you that were there in
2004 when I arrived are now between 28 and 32 years old. Those of you that were
there when I left in 2013 are between 19 and 23 years old. You are all adults
now, and I have been thinking of you often.
I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the Honor
Roll Assemblies, those pep rallies for academic achievement that we had
every quarter. I remember how much fun they were, and how much everybody looked
forward to them. I was always so proud of those of you that got your 3.0 GPA
and earned those coveted seats on the floor of the gym. I was even more proud
of those of you that achieved the ultimate goal of a 4.0 GPA. I don’t think any
of you were aware of how proud I was when you came up on that
stage to get your engraved plaques with your names and Grade Point Averages displayed for all to see.
One reason those assemblies were so important to me is
because in the beginning, many people didn’t believe that we could do that
every quarter. They didn’t believe we should spend the money on the plaques.
They didn’t believe you would appreciate the purpose or act the way you should.
They didn’t understand why the choir should sing, or why the band should
perform, or why the Dance Company should dance. They didn’t believe your
parents would attend. They didn’t believe in you.
I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the
speeches I made at those assemblies. Believe it or not, I never wrote down or
planned what I was going to say to you. As I sat on the stage and watched you
guys march into the gym I would always think of my grandmother, and trust in
her to tell me what to say. That is why so many of my speeches were about
respect for the individual, service to the community, and the pursuit of
excellence. That is why so many times the things I said to you were personal. That
is why I told you over and over again that “you can do anything that you want to do,
but you can’t do it by yourself.” I told you these things because that’s
what she told me. She inspired me, motivated me, and I wanted to inspire and
motivate you.
I have been thinking about the rules we had at Crossland. So
many people thought that our rules were too harsh, unfair, and just would be
impossible to enforce. I’m proud to tell the Class of 2004 that the rules never
changed. The Class of 2013 had the same rules that you and everybody in between
had. I will tell you now that those rules were meant to prepare you for the
expectations that the workplace has for you now. If you use profanity with your
boss, you will probably lose your job. If you get in a fight with your co-worker,
you will probably lose your job. If you don’t show up for work, you will
probably lose your job. I’m sure that you all would agree that you need your job.
A three day or five-day suspension is nothing if it taught you the requirements
for feeding your family.
Since I retired I have had many conversations about Crossland
High School and the things that were accomplished by you, the Cavalier
students. I am always asked what my favorite memories are. I never hesitate to
say “graduations”. You never knew it, but I would struggle every year to keep
from crying. If love is “when the happiness of another is essential to your own”,
I can honestly say I loved every single one of you. I knew that when you walked
across that stage, there wasn’t anything else I could do for you. I could only
hope that everything that I had said and done over the past four years had been
enough to prepare you for what I knew was a world where the odds would be
stacked against you.
That brings me to today, and the thing that inspired me to
reach out to all of you. In ten days, we will have a mid-term election that
will be more important than any election in my lifetime, and probably more
important than any election in the history of our nation. It is very possible
that the results of this election will determine whether or not our nation,
with the rights and privileges we have fought so hard to establish and
maintain, will continue to exist as we know it.
When I was growing up, I was very active when it came to
civil rights issues, and whenever I would get angry or frustrated I would talk
with my grandmother and she would listen quietly as I would rant and rave about
the bigots and racists that were denying us the rights that were guaranteed to
all American citizens in the constitution. When I would run out of things to
say she always seemed to say, "Charlie, I know you’re upset… now what are you
going to do about it?”
“What are you going to do about it?” Those words have been
bouncing around in my head for almost a month now.
In one of those Honor Roll Assembly speeches I
remember talking about a poem by John Donne. In part, it says;
“No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the
continent, A part of the main… Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell
tolls, it tolls for thee.”
When Martin Luther King Jr. led the March
on Washington he was 34 years old. Its your turn now. Its
time for your generation to make its mark on American history. The reason I’m
writing this letter to you is because I have decided that this is the most
impactful thing that I can do to save my country from descending into a hell
that we may never recover from. I have asked you to do many things in the past.
More often than not, you have responded and shocked many who had no faith in
your ability to achieve anything of value.
This is the last thing I will ask of you.
Vote. Convince someone else to vote. Use your social media skills to
convince as many people as you can to vote.
Your job, your civil rights, your human dignity may depend
on it.
On November 6, 2018 “We the people of the United States”
will get an opportunity to save our country and ourselves from the insanity that threatens us. “Send not to know for whom the
bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”
Sincerely,
Your Principal, Mr. Thomas
