I love my hometown. No doubt, I wouldn’t want to grow up anywhere else. I mean besides the endless car dealerships, mediocre chain restaurants, our beloved pot holes and Route 30 traffic… North Huntingdon has so much to offer. I digress. The benefit that came out of a town like ours was the creativity we found to stay busy. I think we can all agree… as a high schooler, a lot of our memories happened in our cars, of course due to the lack of exciting attractions surrounding us. But with our windows down, the music loud, and the feeling of freedom, arguably, there is nothing better than driving as a teenager. 

Driving might not always look so pretty, though, if you didn’t laugh at 7 am watching the fear of most eyes when there’s no more pull through spots left, then you never fully experienced high school at Norwin.

Besides the terror of backing in at the crack of dawn…graduates, imagine yourself behind the wheel like this: driving with no speed bumps. Take out stop signs. No more red lights. Disregard speed limits. Forget about yields, road work and left turns. Driving would be a breeze without it. Learning how to drive would take minimum effort. Destinations would be nothing more than straight ahead. We would assume all paths would be similar. 

Now… graduates let’s imagine measuring your time here at Norwin: High School was not always perfect. Like a road… it has many bumps, turns, ups and downs. The beauty of it all, no two of us took the same path. Traveled the same roads. Waited the same red rights. But what all of our journeys share, is the destination. We gathered here today, with all of our cars shifted in “park.” We arrived. We conquered. We succeeded. Class of two thousand twenty one, we made it! 

With our strength and pure resilience our road has finally ended and another eagerly awaits. Jeremiah chapter 29: verse 11 tells us: “For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Yes, we may not have gone where we intended to go, but I know we ended up where we were intended to be. 

No matter where we go, or how we get there, we are in His care. We are in His hands. And He has a great purpose for us in this life – and that’s the very best place He can let us go. 

My advice for graduates and underclassmen is 1. Never underestimate the therapeutic power of driving and listening to very loud music (safely, of course). 2. Always remember, when going on a road trip it isn’t the destination that’s the greatest part, it’s all the wild stuff that happens along the way. 3. Roads to life sometimes have unexpected turns and you have no choice but to follow them to end up in place you are supposed to be.

For now, goodbye North Huntingdon, we’ll be back soon.