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Dr. King, thank you for that wonderful introduction – I was with the Queen last week and it’s good to be with a King this week! And you truly are a king, and to you and to Dr. Snyder and to all the members of the community here from Southwest Virginia Community College – it is a treat to come.

Charlie told the story correctly. He asked me a couple of years ago and the timing didn’t work out but I said I am gonna make it happen and I want to make it happen when I am governor. It’s good to have a chance to come and be with you for a few minutes tonight on what is a very, very happy occasion, I know, for all in this room and beyond.

Giving a graduation speech is hard because no one cares what their graduation speaker says. I am not proud enough to think you came here to hear me speak. In fact, I graduated from high school, college and law school and I can’t remember a single thing that anyone of my graduation speakers said. I actually gave the graduation speech at my high school and I don’t remember what I said!

In fact, my high school graduation was the most memorable of the three. I don’t remember what I said I only remember two things and both of those things happened outside in the hall when the graduation was over.  The first one was when we stepped out:   My ex-girlfriend, who had dumped me the week before senior prom came out and gave me a big kiss. And you know that meant a lot to me.

I have had a chance to think a lot about why that meant a lot to me in the years since and here’s what I decided: I had not seen her since that night we broke up; I was not happy when she dropped me right before senior prom, I have to admit. But when she came over and gave me a hug and a kiss, it was saying “Hey, we’re gonna go off and do different things, let’s just make things right between us.”

And so the first thing I would say to you tonight in that hall afterward as you are celebrating, if there is anybody in this room that you have any moment of discord with or you’re not right with, tonight is a wonderful time to go over to them and say good luck. It’ll make you feel real good and it might be something that they’ll remember for a very long time.

The second thing that happened at my graduation out in the hallway afterwards was that I went up to my parents and I was a pretty cool and collected 18-year-old and so I shook my dad’s hand and gave my mother a very formal hug and I thought that was a really cool thing to do. I happened to look next to me and the All-State center on my high school football team who later went to play at Notre Dame was with his parents and he gave his dad a big hug and he gave his mom a big hug, and they were shedding tears of joy and I remember thinking, “Why can’t I be like that?” How come I was being really cool and formal with my parents? 

So the second thing I would say to you tonight is when you are out there and you have all these people around who helped you get through times to get here, if there’s any of you in this room who are tempted like me to be kinda cool and collected, tonight’s not the night for that. Tonight’s the night to really show these folks who are here how much you appreciate them. That’s what I remember from my graduation.

Let me just say a few words about the time at which you are graduating, just a few things, thoughts that are really welling up in me as a result of a very, very complicated, emotion-filled last month, and in particular thoughts that I am thinking about as I prepare to go this weekend to Jamestown with the President.

We will celebrate on Mother’s Day the 400th anniversary of the establishment of Jamestown Island, the beginning of English-speaking civilization in a New World, the beginning of institutions like elected legislatures and freedom of religion, and the notion of equality of all people.

When The Queen visited us last week and my wife and I had the chance to show her around the Capitol and Jamestown, we were struck by the fact that she had been here 50 years before. Queen Elizabeth II is over 80; she had been here as the 31-year-old new monarch in 1957 to see Virginia at that time.

And it made me think about this question: How has Virginia changed in the last 50 years? Let me tell you what we all would have been growing through had we been here in 1957 rather than 2007. First, we wouldn’t have been here. In the 1950’s at this time, 50 years ago, get this: Virginia ranked at the bottom of the nation in the percentage of our students who were enrolled in school – of our student-aged kids, we were near the bottom of the nation in enrollments.

And we had limited economic opportunities in 1957. If you had been at your age right now, the Virginia per capita income in that year was about $1500 – it was 36th in the United States. That’s where we were 50 years ago.

Here’s where we are in 2007. We’ve got a strong education network -- Southwest Virginia Community College and community college campuses are accessible to people in every community of this Commonwealth. We’ve had great success in our K-12 education system. It’s great to see young people here tonight and our schools K-12 rank up among the best in the nation. And our four-year institutions like Virginia Tech and UVa and UVa-Wise are doing so very well.

We also have a changed economy. I told you that 50 years ago Virginia was 36th in the nation in per capita income. Fifty years later we are 9th in the nation in per capita income. Those changes over the lifetimes of your parents, over the lifetimes of people in this room, from a poor performer economically, and a poor performer educationally to a top performer have been dramatic.

And earlier this year Education Week magazine did a survey and they asked this question: “In all the 50 states, what is the best state for a child to be born in today if they want to have a good chance for life success?” They ranked each state, and they ranked Virginia number one. We have come a long, long way. {Applause} We have come a long way.

Why have we advanced? What’s to explain going from a poor state to a wealthier state, and a poor-performing state educationally to a better-performing state? Lord knows we’ve got a lot of work still to do. We’ve got a lot of challenges still to overcome. But what has explained this dramatic forward acceleration for Virginia?

There are a lot of things that I think have caused it and a lot of people who get a lot of credit. But I think there are two trends that have been powerful in Virginia in the last 50 years that have moved this state forward and that I pray will continue to.

The first has been a commitment, unlike in any past time in Virginia, of the leaders of this state to invest in you, to invest in Southwest Virginia Community College, to invest in community colleges, to invest in education. And there’s no better example of that then the story of the founding of the community college system.

No community colleges in 1957, but in the last years of Albertis Harrison’s administration, and then especially in Mills Godwin’s administration in the 60’s, these community colleges, Southwest Virginia Community College, and others all around the state were planned, built and opened. When this college opened in 1968 -- 700 students; there are thousands of students now,  15,000 alumni or more.

The foundation of the community college system in Virginia and improvements in higher-ed and improvements in K-12 education has been the first reason why Virginia has leapt forward in the last 50 years. People like Dr. King, who was here the day this school opened as its President and here all the way through January 1. And Dr. Snyder, who was 31 years at Wytheville Community College and so many of you here. You get the lion’s share of credit for helping Virginia move forward.

The second reason that we’ve jumped ahead in the last 50 years is this: 50 years ago, we were a divided state. We didn’t let folks who were African-American and from other countries have educational opportunities. We didn’t let women have equal educational opportunities.

My father-in-law, a great Southwest Virginian, Linwood Holton, from Big Stone Gap in Wise County, got elected governor in 1969, and he pledged during his campaign and thereafter that he was going to end the divided state, where we were divided region against region and race against race and try to make us truly a commonwealth. We were all together.

And from opening up opportunities for minorities and women and getting the regions to work more together, the reason we’ve jumped forward is that we aren’t a divided state anymore. We’ve worked increasingly together.

And we know so deeply that no community, no school, no church, no business, no family, no town, no county, no state, no nation, no community can be successful if people are divided one against the other. We’ve got to be unified if we want to succeed.

This became so clear to me in the midst of these very tragic events recently at Virginia Tech.  I know that this community is very, very close in heart, mind and spirit to the community Virginia Tech, who is having their graduation tomorrow night.  How proud I was as Governor to watch even in the midst of a terrible tragedy the way that campus came together. Students stood up and said positive things about their campus. They wouldn’t let the media cause them to blame people. Instead their concern was rallying together. And again and again, in good times or bad, Virginia has shown over the last generation that we can rally together and be one community.

And so I would submit that of the many things that have helped us advance, investments in education and breaking down barriers between us have been the two things that have really helped us succeed.

So what about the next 50 years? What’s it gonna be in the next 50 years, when we can hopefully stand here in 2057 and still say Virginia is in a good place? Well, let’s do more of the same.

Wise investments in education will be that thing that will continue to help us lead. This has been known in Virginia for a long time. Thomas Jefferson wrote this great book, “Notes on the State of Virginia,” when he was Ambassador to Paris in the 1780’s. And he laid out a plan for compulsory education for all. He said, “Progress in government depends upon the broadest diffusion of knowledge among the general public.”

From our earliest days, we’ve known that investments in education and knowledge have the capacity to raise us all.  Southwest Virginia Community College is doing all kinds of innovative programs – traditional community college curriculum, special curriculum in connection with CGIAMS and Northrop Grumman in Lebanon to uplift students with technology skills for the future.   If we invest widely in education, if you dedicate yourself to being teachers, to being great parents, to being School Board members, to supporting Southwest Virginia Community College and the colleges in your community, Virginia will continue to advance. 

And second, let’s keep breaking down barriers. In the last 50 years we had to break down barriers between us as a state. Increasingly, we live in a world where the barriers we have to break down are not those between us but barriers between our Commonwealth and the rest of the world.

We’re now in a global economy unlike in any period in this nation’s history. And we have to learn to reach out, and find talent wherever it is, and break down those barriers, and be part of that global economy in a powerful way.

I mentioned CGIAMS – this great company that is building a technology center in Lebanon near here, and I know many of you have had opportunities to meet with them or take courses that might fit you with a career for them. This is an American company that’s owned by a Canadian parent company that is investing here in Southwest Virginia.

I just came to you today from a plant visit in Bluefield at Joy Mining Machinery Company, a long-time American company that in the last 10 years has bought an English company, and now has plants and sells their products made right in Bluefield, Virginia all over the world. That’s the kind of world we live in now.

And wherever we live and whatever we do, we have to think about breaking down the barriers and connecting Virginia with the rest of the globe. That’s in some ways a brave new world that we’re in, where global opportunities are sometimes as near as a manufacturing facility in Bluefield, a technology center just down the road in Lebanon. But you know in some ways – and I will say this and conclude – it’s not a brave new world. Back to Jamestown.

Folks came to Jamestown 400 years ago from England looking for global trade. It was not about religious freedom, it wasn’t about a geographic expedition; it was looking for global economic opportunities.  And so in some ways the world that we live in today has challenges that are very similar to what those 104 settlers faced when they came to Jamestown.

And today you are the settlers, you are the explorers. You don’t likely have the new geographic worlds to discover that John Smith and those in the Godspeed, the Discovery and the Susan Constant had. But I am here to tell you that you can still be adventurers and explorers because there are still new worlds of research and knowledge for you to discover.

There are still new worlds of economic opportunity and innovation and entrepreneurship for you to discover.  There are still new worlds of brotherhood, and reconciliation and working together with people for you to discover. Just as 400 years ago, there are still new worlds and there is no one who is better qualified or able to discover those worlds than you.

Congratulations to you all and it’s truly an honor to be with you tonight.

Thank you!

 

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