Graduates receive diplomas under the faces of giants

By: 
Leslie Silverman
Despite rain, storms and even some snow, the Hill City class of 2025 graduated at Mount Rushmore National Memorial May 18.  
The ceremony began with a message from superintendent Blake Gardner who told graduates that the day was their “Super Bowl,” relaying his signature message to “make today a masterpiece.”
Dakota Allmer, the 2025 class salutatorian, was introduced by Joe Noyes. Allmer has received the prestigious Congressional Award, the highest honor the United States Congress gives to an American youth and was described by Noyes as “an instrumental piece to the success of the  volleyball and track teams” in Hill City. 
Allmer’s message to her fellow graduates was about choices and shaping the future. She told her classmates, “The future doesn’t demand that we have all the answers today; it simply asks that we show up with courage, with determination and with the willingness to grow.” 
She encouraged them to “step forward with hope and a purpose.” 
Teacher Jennifer Mueller  introduced the 2025 class  valedictorian by saying, “Two years ago, my universe collided with a fast-talking ponytailed sophomore.” 
She described Lexi Brandt as a person who breaks down walls. Brandt is the youngest person in the United States to become a park ranger as well as a pilot who flies on the weekends. 
“If there is an obstacle,” Mueller said of Brandt, “she annihilates it.”
Brandt recalled being a “nervous freshman” whenshe entered the Hill City School District four years ago. 
“I felt like I was starting from scratch. No friends. No sense of belonging and  no idea what the next four years would hold,” she said.
Brandt went on to say that Hill City gave her “something more meaningful than I ever expected—a community. Not just a place to go to school.”
She told her classmates, referring to the presidents carved into Mount Rushmore, “We see the legacy of what happens when people chase opportunity, when they dare to lead and when they push past fear and failure to provide something greater for themselves. Those four men didn’t start out as giants. They were ordinary people with extraordinary vision just like us.”
She urged her classmates that there is “still more to be carved” and that “a dream is never too big.”
Congressman Dusty Johnson addressed the class of 2025 with a story of working at the West Bend campground. He told graduates they too might in their lifetime be covered in fish guts and toilet, as he was, working at that job.  
“The choice you have in how to respond will be the same. Will you be trampled down or will you rise up?”
Johnson said, “In so many ways we are powerless,” adding, “I did not choose to be a cross between  Orville Redenbacher and Howdy Doody. We all, however, have control over our attitude. 
“It’s not just your attitude in the face of the big things that matters.” 
Johnson encouraged graduates to take their opportunity, to smile when little things happen and not let the “scales, bones and fish guts of Missouri River walleye or anything else stop you.”
Hill City graduated 38 in the class of 2025, including 18 Regents Scholars. 

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