Prepared Text for Board Meeting (Hopton)
Marc A. Schare
Work -
Tonight, I have the
distinct honor of presenting the Board of Education impact award to Bronwynn and David Hopton. Of
course, what I really want to do is to present them with a
lifetime achievement award for surely, their lives have been dedicated to the
betterment of a generation of
You can read the prose in
the agenda, but I want to offer one or two personal comments.
So much of high school is
about belonging. Jim Gaskill made this point very
eloquently at last night’s graduation ceremony. Of course, education is about
academics, but for those lessons to take hold, kids need to feel that they have
a home in high school. For so many kids through the years, that home has been
the Cardinal theatre. Don’t believe it? Check out the theatre resumes of the
graduating seniors that are posted outside the Cardinal theatre, and you’ll
see kids who have devoted one thousand or, in some cases, two or three thousand
hours to that program over a high school career. Running the numbers, that’s 1
or 2 hours or 3 hours a day, every day, for four years, and if that’s not a
home, I don’t know what is.
I could go on and on, but
I know we have some audience members who can tell this story far better than I
can. I’ll close by mentioning that a blog was set up for current and former theatre
students to post their favorite memories of the program and we received dozens
of posts, some
of which were quite moving. We’ll include the web site address in the meeting
minutes (hoptontribute.blogspot.com) or if anyone wants it, just send me an
email.
Without further adieu, Please
join me in thanking Dr. David Hopton and Bronwynn Hopton for decades of
service and congratulating them on their receipt of this Board of Education
Impact Award.