Editor’s note: Today, The DAILY LEADER continues publication of valedictorian and salutatorian speeches from recent graduation ceremonies at local schools. Today’s address is from Loyd Star Attendance Center Valedictorian Bretton Crosby.

     Good evening. On behalf of the class of 2012, I want to welcome you to Loyd Star. Most of us have been here for 13 years, and we haven’t had an awful lot of visitors, so we’re excited that you’re here to celebrate with us.

     I want to pause before we really dive in to thank some people. To my family, thanks for having been there the whole way, unwavering and loving always. To my friends, you make my world easier. Thank you. For everyone else who’s supported me through the years, thank you. You’re important. And to God, the One who knows me inside and out and still desires to know me, I owe You everything.

     I believe that every generation since the invention of the television has had a TV show with which it identified, that one show where you felt as though the characters really understood your life, where you grew up with the characters and understood their heartaches and joys. In fact, a lot of times, you just wanted to live in their universe.

     For us, that show is “Boy Meets World,” which we’ve seen all the way through countless times because of the reruns and the genius of ABC Family and Disney Channel. Everybody wanted to be Cory Matthews, wanted a best friend like Shawn Hunter, a teacher like Mr. Feeny, and of course, what guy doesn’t want a girlfriend like Topanga Lawrence? See, we grew up with them. We felt the pains they felt and were thrilled when they won something.

     The series finale of “Boy Meets World” is a heart-wrenching two-episode thing where the viewer relives some of the most memorable moments of the series as the characters begin to go their separate ways and tie up the loose ends that come with a long-running series.

     You, the viewer, are allowed to reminisce alongside the characters; we did, after all, travel with them from sixth grade through the early years of college.

     The final scene, though, is really the climax of the entire finale. We wrap up in the same classroom where Cory, Shawn, and Topanga spent many of their high school classes with Mr. Feeny. Cory, Shawn, and Topanga take their seats, the same ones that they sat in high school, and ask Mr. Feeny if he has anything else left to teach them. Mr. Feeny gives just one more lesson in this moment: “Believe in yourselves. Dream. Do good.”

     See the thing is, Mr. Feeny said all of this at the end. When the time was running out, he reminded them what they would need to know. But here’s the thing about Loyd Star: Our teachers have been saying and showing us all those things for years. In the most subtle of ways, the interactions we’ve had with teachers and with one another here have taught us all those things. For me to say that as a parting piece of advice is unnecessary, because we have had teachers for years who had taught us just that. We’ve been shown for years here that we are valuable people with contributions to make to the world. We’ve been shown that we need to dream big. We’ve been taught that nothing in life worth having comes without trying hard.

     But I did cut off the scene’s narrative before a moment that I believe is pivotal for us to catch. Right after Mr. Feeny says, “Do good,” Topanga, being the brainiac valedictorian that she was, interrupts Mr. Feeny to correct what could’ve been a grammatical error. Good is, of course, an adjective, and well is an adverb. Something is good, but you don’t do something good, you do something well. Topanga says, “Don’t you mean do well?” Mr. Feeny replies, “No, I mean do good.” Topanga assumes that Mr. Feeny is encouraging them to be successful monetarily, for them to go off and make a name for themselves, to succeed by all worldly standards. This is a radical shift in what they’ve been taught to believe is important. Mr. Feeny, though, is making an entirely different statement. He is not saying to go and succeed; rather he’s saying to go and change the world. This is something that we have been shown day in and day out by our teachers, people who are actually changing the world.

     So, to wrap up, as a final word to my classmates, in the words of Mr. Feeny, do good. Change the world. Make it a better place than you left it. Thank you.

     Bretton Crosby is the son of Derek and Rebecca Crosby.