Student Commencement Speaker

[Coach Norman Dale]

9 minutes and out.     

Prior to my giving a speech to some graduating high school honor students several years ago, a friend of mine (who was the father of one of the students) gave me words to live by in public speaking:  "I have never heard anyone say they thought the speaker's presentation was TOO SHORT."  I loved it, mentioned in my presentation that day and kept it in mind whenever I had the opportunity to speak in similar situations.

[In contrast, the other public speaking advice I got came from my wife.  She said, "Remember, it is not always about you."  OUCH!  BTW, I wholeheartedly disagreed with her b/c I believe you gotta talk about what you know.     ]

[dwj]

I know this topic pertains to STUDENT commencement speakers, but I found this article pretty interesting:

http://www.slate.com/id/2218597/

Basically, it lists a group of "failures" (drug addicts, fraudulent bankers, and, well, Eliot Spitzer), who the author claims would benefit the students because they can pinpoint when/how/why they failed, whereas as someone like Warren Buffet can't adequately explain his reasons for success. 

Like I said, I know it's not perfectly on topic with this thread, but I think it opens the debate of what we want from our speakers.  Most of us aren't 4.0 students; maybe it would be more helpful learning what not to do as opposed to what to do.

[GGGG]

Prior to my giving a speech to some graduating high school honor students several years ago, a friend of mine (who was the father of one of the students) gave me words to live by in public speaking:  "I have never heard anyone say they thought the speaker's presentation was TOO SHORT."  I loved it, mentioned in my presentation that day and kept it in mind whenever I had the opportunity to speak in similar situations.

I had a friend who gave a speach at commencement once.  Her words were "Have a good beginning, a good ending, and put them close together."

[Sweenz]

I graduated in '07 and I remember being able to vote for who we wanted as our speaker. There were 3 selections to choose from. All were really smart kids who did study alot (i am not saying that they were all bookworms), but at least we got a choice.

Can anyone from that class back this up?

I can, the student speaker was my brother... the class got to vote and they had 10 original narrowed down to three... and I guarantee my brother was not a book worm although he got great grades, he was involved and was very very social. Not the stereotype that everyone here is listing- bookworm= bad speech. Of course I am biased