Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr11/wh930624.zip/06-24A.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-06-24 | 10KB

From @lex-luthor.ai.mit.edu:[e-mail]  Thu Jun 24 10:58:18 1993
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 10:44-0400
From: The White House <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: President's Remarks to Presidential Scholars  6.23.93

                           THE WHITE HOUSE

                    Office of the Press Secretary

_____________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                   June 23, 1993


                      REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
           DURING PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLARS MEDALLION CEREMONY

                           The South Lawn

4:42 P.M. EDT

         THE PRESIDENT:  I want to thank you all for being here
and welcome the members of Congress who are here and those who were
here who had to leave for a vote.  I want to say a special word of --
it's a good vote -- (laughter and applause) -- I want to say a
special word of thanks to the Marine band for being here to play for
us today.  (Applause.)  Thank you.  (Applause.)  Since my office is
just over there, when they come out here to play for you, they also
keep me in a far better frame of mind as I work through the day.

         I thank the Commission on Presidential Scholars for all
the work that they have put into selecting this year's recipients.  I
especially want to thank my good friend, Governor Florio, of New
Jersey for his work as chairman.  (Applause.)  I asked him to serve
as chairman because I admire the courage and conviction with which he
has conducted himself as Governor of New Jersey and particularly the
bravery that he showed in dealing with the educational needs of the
people of his state.

         The Secretary of Education, Dick Riley, formerly was
Governor of South Carolina, and in that connection he labored
mightily for years to improve the education of the children of his
state and served as a mentor of mine.  And I thank him for his
leadership.  (Applause.)

         As I look out at this group today of proud parents and
family members and friends and educators, I'm reminded once again of
the curious mix of things that produces the sort of achievement that
we see embodied in the young people on this stage today.  There are,
unfortunately, still a lot of people in the United States who believe
that how much you learn and how well you do in life depends primarily
on your IQ.  And yet we know that if you strung all the people on the
globe together from first to last by IQ, you couldn't stick a straw
between any of the two.  A remarkable combination of ability and
intangible things, like encouragement and love and support as well as
personal effort and drive and commitment, go into making up really
gifted learners who are committed to doing it for a lifetime.

         All the young people who have been acknowledged today
have great natural talents, and they should be grateful for what God
has given them.  But every person on this stage today -- not only
them, but me -- we're all here because of the people who helped us
along the way.

         There's a young man who was supposed to be here today
named Justin Konrad from the state of Maine who on June the 5th was
in an automobile accident that claimed the life of one of his friends
and claimed part of one of his legs.  Today he's in a hospital in
Maine recovering from his injuries.  I talked to him this weekend
when I was up in Maine and he's already talking about going to
Harvard and majoring in government and playing sports.  When he gave
his -- let me see if I can pronounce this -- salutatorian's address
at his high school graduation, he gave a speech about optimism -- and
he still has it.  And I hope all of you will be able to keep it as
you go through college and you pursue your careers.

         Keeping a positive frame of mind may sound like an
obvious and easy thing.  It becomes increasingly difficult with a
difficulty of circumstances, but more important, with every passing
day.

         Last Saturday, just before I spoke with Justin by phone,
I was speaking at the commencement of Northeastern University in
Boston, and I met another young student there graduating from college
named Doug Luffborough.  He was the person who was designated by his
fellow students at Northeastern to speak on their behalf.  Doug's
mother is a cleaning woman who earns $7,000 a year and who, in
addition to her regular job, cleans a private school part-time to pay
tuition for another of her sons.  For awhile, the mother and all of
her children were actually homeless.

         It's remarkable that this young man ever got to go to
college at all.  The advice he got from one of his counselors was to
give it up and start looking for a job.  But his mother believed in
him and refused to let him aim low.  When she couldn't get a
babysitter, she took him along to work.  And he watched her day in
and day out never give up hope, and by her example he learned a
powerful lesson.  When he came to Northeastern University, the school
made it possible for him to work part-time while going to school; and
his on-the-job experience helped him to get a very good job when he
graduated.  He's shown an amazing amount of responsibility, but his
mother stood by him, his school stood by him, and he had an employer
who stood by him.

         So no matter how heroic individuals are, they still need
help to make it and support.  Chances of success increase
dramatically when other people believe in you, give you
opportunities, and ask you to take the responsibility to make the
most of them.

         And I want to thank every person here today who made it
possible for these young people to be up on this stage and to have
the kind of life they're going to have.  (Applause.)

         I also want to say that this administration is working
hard to open the doors of college education to all young people, to
make it possible for them to get loans to go to college and to pay
them back on much more favorable terms than has been the case in the
past.  (Applause.)  And we are trying to pass with strong bipartisan
support a national service program which will make it possible for
tens of thousands of young people to earn credit against those loans
before, during or after their college years by giving something back
to their communities where they live.  (Applause.)

         Vice President Gore has just returned from California
where he kicked off our Summer of Service program, which is the
beginning of this national service effort.  I know that a lot of you
have been involved in service programs.

         I want to just ask -- I want recognize one of the
scholars, MarLeice Hyde, from Valley High School in Afton, Wyoming.
Where are you?  I want to tell you about her.  She organized the
junior volunteer program at her local hospital, which contributed
over 1,000 hours of community service at the hospital while holding
two jobs, attending evening college courses, and meeting the
responsibilities that come from being the oldest of six children.
Let's give her a hand.  (Applause.)  Congratulations.  (Applause.)

         Finally, let me say a word about our educators.  We
often spend our time talking about what's wrong with our educational
system, but we ought to also acknowledge that there is a great deal
that is right with it.  And a lot of these young people today might
not be here were it not for their teachers, their principals, the
people who worked with them and believed in them.

         We think that the educators of America who are trying to
do a good job shouldn't have to go it alone and should have some way
of knowing whether they're meeting the competition around the globe.
That's why Secretary Riley has worked so hard with his Goals 2000
program and with the legislation now moving through Congress to
embrace world class learning standards that all American schools will
be given the opportunity to meet and that all American parents and
students can judge their own progress by.

         I am very encouraged by that work and very grateful for
the cooperative spirit that we see now in Washington between
everybody involved in the educational endeavor.  We think that Goals
2000 will turn a nation at risk into a nation on the move in
education.

         Let me say in closing that I've thought a great deal
about education this summer because I just celebrated under this same
tent a couple of weeks ago my 25th college reunion.  I saw some of my
classmates -- one of them runs a refugee center for Palestinians in
Jordan.  One came all the way back from Cambodia where he had his
life at risk monitoring the elections in that troubled country where
once so many people were killed by tyranny.  Many of them have made
incredibly valuable contributions to their lives.  And all of us were
sitting here 25 years later in this very spot remembering with
incredible vividness actual specific things our teachers had said to
us in class.  We had a contest to remember how many verbatim
sentences we could remember from different professors we had had.
And everyone of us concluded at the end that none of our lives would
have been possible if we hadn't had the benefit of a world class
education.

         I hope this presidential scholarship brings to all of
you on this stage those kinds of memories 25 years from now.  I hope
you will do everything you can to make the most of the opportunities
before you.  And I hope you will take some time along the way to
enrich the communities from which you came and the people who made it
possible for you to be here today.

         Thank you all.  Congratulations and God bless you.
(Applause.)

                                 END4:52 P.M. EDT