Commencement speech at Field Kindley, Coffeyville, KS

Thank you. I want to begin by offering a note of thanks to everyone who played a role by inviting me here today, beginning with Darrell Harbaugh, who began here at Field Kindley just as I was leaving.

On the podium at Field Kindley High School, Coffeyville, KS with (L to R) Darrel Harbaugh, retiring Debate coach, myself and Principal James Dodge, who is also retiring.

Come to thing of it, it seems like I'm the only person here who isn't graduating, retiring, or getting a promotion.

Congratulations Mr. Harbaugh for your excellent leadership of the Debate program here and best wishes on the next phase of your journey.

Also to Principal Dodge and Assistant Principal Vargas. Congratulations on your new responsibilities, as well as to Principal Dodge as he wraps up his successful tenure here.

Also thanks to Superintendent Dr. Robert Morton and Dr. Hamm, whose career here goes back to when I was a student. But he was a child prodigy, so he was quite young then.

Let me begin by saying what a wonderful honor it is to have a few minutes to speak to you here today.

My beginning here

All those many years ago when I was in your spot, I could have imagined many things, but it never crossed my mind that I might be back here addressing the Field Kindley Commencement. So this is a great pleasure.

Graduating students. First, congratulations. Today marks a key achievement of your promising lives.

I'm here to encourage you, to continue your journey with pioneering Kansas spirit, however your own vision of the future might look. For me, I always knew that I wanted to work in broadcasting, I just wasn't sure how I'd get to where I wanted to be.

I did know that I had to leave, not because I didn't love it here, just because that's the nature of the media industry. The best opportunities for a broadcast journalist are in larger cities. And so, I worked hard, here first as a student, got my foot in the door of KGGF. My journey led to Washington, where I've been for most of my life now.

I've talked with a lot of college students over the past year.

It is understandable why they have been concerned about their own prospects given the severity of the economic crisis that presented itself in full view 4 years ago.

But instead of focusing on the negative, it is more important for you to embrace opportunity.

And to realize the many unique good things that are happening at this moment in the history of our country, and our planet.

When I was a student here, we spent a lot of time in the library, looking at news magazines, like Time and Newsweek. 

 Awash in information, misinformation

 From an access to information and media standpoint, and in other ways, we were more separated from the rest of the world because the Internet and personal computers were still being developed.

In the past 20 years, everyone in the developed world, particularly those in free societies, have been more closely tied to one another than any other point in all of human history.

One of key reasons why there have been uprisings in the Arab world over the past year, has been access to information, both through Facebook and Twitter but also because of television news, such as the Al Jazeera network.

What does that mean for you? Well for one, you have excellent access to information. 

While the world is awash information, there's also excellent access to misinformation.

Whether it is to do something as evil as fomenting terrorism, or just trying to take a shortcut in winning voter support for a political aim, there are plenty of forces in play that seek to distract all of us, from the truth. As a journalist, I'm involved in the fight for truth. Millions of dollars are spent aimed at distracting people, both voters and our elected leaders.

The father of American humor Mark Twain, who himself was a journalist and died over 100 years ago, said “The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain't so.” 

Manage your digital reputation

There's also more information available about connected individuals that's accumulating in our digital world. That puts the burden on each one of you to take care managing your activities online, managing your image, in a way that won't do damage when it comes time to apply for a job, or date, get married, or have children who can look up what you have done.

If you haven't started thinking about what kind of digital footprint you are leaving, I'd urge you to do so, for your own protection.

Even though you are graduating today, your work isn't done. Your futures are tied to your own ability to seek the truth, to seek knowledge and to continually engage in a search for your own identities.

If you are headed to work, to learn a trade, attend a college or university, or raise children at home, all of those are the places where the next opportunities are presented.

Maybe it has already been the case for some of you. I can tell you my own journey, personally, professionally, and spiritually, has taken many unexpected turns.

Opportunities for doing good

One of the beautiful things about life, is that we do not know how it turns out. At this point, you might be saying, I don't like thinking about the unknown. There's too much white space on the blank page.

But try to look at all of that blank space, as an opportunity for your own achievements. They are opportunities to seek the best in other people and set a high standard for your own life, whatever the day to day might bring.

I'm the father of a college student, Christopher, who graduated from high school just two years ago.

When my son was in elementary school, I gave him some advice.

I urged him to offer a compliment to at least one person, ideally a different person, everyday.

He learned over time that this was something that gave him positive feedback. By helping others, perhaps in just a small way, he was building goodwill. Helping his community and support team, one day at a time.

I can tell you far away from here, in busy Washington. That's not the way things always go.

You might say "good morning", or hold a door open for someone, and the simple gesture might go unnoticed and not returned as it is here, where people are more willing to acknowledge strangers. But we should always do what we can, trying to make a positive impact where we can.

One of the other assets you have is that you are living in the United States. Just by being born here, you have an advantage that other people on the planet envy. We live in a nation of law, free from a shooting war in our homeland. Most people have access to health care, food and other vital resources.

With great power comes....

Super heroes are big in the movies these days.

One of the lines in the Spiderman movie was “with great power comes great responsibility.”

Late former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt had a similar, more elegant and developed sentiment when she said “Freedom makes a huge responsibility of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.”

So, we can extend from that the hope that all of us can be -- the best we can be. he smartest we can be. The healthiest we can be. To be the kindest we can be.

We have the opportunity, we have the freedom. Now we just have to choose to take the right turn.

Look for mentors

I've had a lot of good fortune in my life. It is important to be open to opportunities when they present themselves.

Even after high school, you'll meet people who can serve as mentors whether you are my age, or yours. They might help you to know more about religion, or they might also help you to learn a skill, or to guide your career.

I've had the benefit of having many people like that in my life. Here in Coffeyville, it was then-debate coach Les Kuhns, government teacher Gene Neely, who was also our adviser in Key Club.

At the radio station KGGF, a man who some of the parents here might remember, Bill Miller gave me a huge break and great room to learn, and most importantly, to make mistakes on the air.

Even in recent years, I’ve sought the counsel of people who could help me to learn about something.

As Kansans, you carry inside you a pioneering spirit, the same one that helped to settle the Old West and to stare down the Daltons. It is a heritage that involves rugged individualism. Whether your own journey keeps you close to home, or far away, those characteristics will be a great help.

I talked earlier about access to information and technology, which are, on balance, positive.

There are risks presented with technology also. I see that people are less willing to make real connections. So while having friends on Facebook has its benefits, it is the non digital connections that you make that will help you the most.

Look up from your phone, and embrace the beauty of the world around you. There's a lot to be said about going outside your house, looking at the sky and seeing what kind of day it is. It is the difference between saying, it is a beautiful day, and appreciating that, as opposed to seeing the digitally presented weather forecast.

You, too, can do it!

Over the years, I've met all kinds of people, leaders at the highest levels of government, celebrities and just good, hard working people.

At one level, it is a great thing to be able to have a conversation with some of your heroes. For me, some of those have included, baseball ironman Cal Ripken jr., or the Reverend and great civil rights leader, Jesse Jackson, or Betty White or Morgan Freeman.

Just over a year ago, we celebrated at the National Press Club with two of my heroes from Montgomery County, Bill Kurtis who has been a great success in the news business, not to mention the narrator in Wil Farrell's Anchorman (a sequel is in the works by the way). You know Bill Kurtis also as the force behind the development in Sedan, originally from Independence. Another great person from here in town is television's Chuck Bowman, who went from Coffeyville, to Tulsa and then Los Angeles. He acted on TVs old Dragnet, and then directed TV's Incredible Hulk, Dr. Quinn and more recently ABC's Castle among others.

These are great men who worked hard and made their marks in the most competitive of fields. And there are dozens like them, hailing from Southeast Kansas, who have done well, thanks to their dedication and hard work.

So you all of you, you can make your own way too.

A seemingly never ending series of decisions are yet to be made. You have your minds, and your hearts, including your education here, to help guide the way.

You can expect to have a great journey, if you decide to make a difference across the street, or half a world away.

Challenge "conventional wisdom"

So, before I close, (and that's not a cheap way of getting you to applaud because I'm signaling that I'm almost finished) I'd like to point out how we can all look at the world a little differently, a little more clearly, if we challenge popularly held notions.

And we can begin by knocking down the concepts of conventional wisdom and common sense. Wisdom is not conventional and sense isn't all that common.

Proverbs abound that are just a bunch of bunk. Let's take a look at a few.

1. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. What's actually true is that what doesn't kill you can mess you up for life and even make you wish you were dead.
   Many of these have to do with health, it seems.
2. Time heals all wounds. All wounds, really? Have you ever heard of a scar?
3. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Wrong. Otherwise, the multi-billion dollar drug industry would fold. When was the last time a doctor asked you how many apples you've had? Good try, apple farmers!
4. Honesty is the best policy. Maybe most of the time. But most people would rather be complemented than be told the absolute truth. And whenever my wife Jeanne brings home some new clothing, it always looks absolutely fantastic. Right dads out there? Actually, in my wife's case, it does always look great.
5. Love is Blind. Again, contradicting the popular notion that I just mentioned. So are we supposed to be honest, or be act with the blinders on? Probably something in-between is best.
6. All good things must come to an end. Well, not all good things end. A lot of bad things must end too. Or don't. So, I don't know what that saying is supposed to do for us.
7. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Actually, you can. In fact, before you eat it, you must have it.

And finally...

Just two weeks ago, as I was working on this speech, I realized I was celebrating my connection to Kansas . That same afternoon I went out in to my yard to plant some seeds I had grown over the past couple of weeks.

Those were Sunflower seeds. And as I was working with them, I thought, “ah, ha”.

A celebration of my connection to the Sunflower state.

Our collective journeys have all brought us here together today. And I consider that a blessing.

Stay in touch with your Coffeyville and Kansas roots. Embrace your inner Kansan. Plant some sunflower seeds. Question that “common” wisdom.

If you do that, continue to work hard and strive to do the right thing, maybe even set a goal of helping to make other people's lives better, the result, just might surprise you.

Oh, and there's one more saying that doesn't hold true, “You can't go home again”. Everyone here has been so nice and welcoming. It has been a wonderful visit back to my hometown.

Thank so very much for having here today and for being such a kind audience. Congratulations, parents, students and teachers, and Go 'Nado!