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The end of their careers at Allen Community College will bring about choices, ACC graduates were told Saturday.
It’s up to them to decide how their lives will unfold.
Speakers Vicki Curry and Morgan Baska offered similar words of advice to the packed Allen gymnasium, encouraging the graduates to make their choices earnestly.
Baska, who on top of attending Allen as a student, was a member of the Red Devil softball team while also volunteering for the Allen County Rural Volunteer Fire Department, encouraged her fellow alums to “fall forward.”
She borrowed a quote from actor Denzel Washington, who noted baseballer Reggie Jackson struck out 2,600 times in his career, while inventor Thomas Edison compiled more than 1,000 failed experiments.
But neither was renowned for those, Baska said, but rather their successes in the form of World Series home runs or the light bulb.
“You’re gonna fail, lose, embarrass yourself,” Baska promised. “You have a choice. Choose to fall forward, not backward.”
Likewise, Curry, whose affiliation with Allen goes back to her time as a student in the 1970s, encouraged the graduates to learn from their mistakes.
“Learning from mistakes is part of being human,” she said. “If you don’t learn from the mistakes, the mistakes are bound to be repeated.”
Curry noted that after her time at Allen, she neglected to continue her schooling until well into adulthood, when she was married with three children.
“I can only give you my advice from experience,” she said. “NOW is the easiest time in your life to complete your education. … It would have been so much easier when I had just graduated from Allen to continue, but I didn’t.”
Curry lauded the countless parents, teachers, coaches or others who helped the graduates forge their path.
“Remember other people’s lives are affected by your decisions, too,” Curry said.
“I try to be an optimist,” she said. “So I still have a bucket list of choices I hope to get to make. It’s called living life. I wish for every one of you that you get to live your life fully, and learn from both the good and bad life hands you, as well as the good and bad decisions you make.”
Curry’s career after graduating from Allen started at Piqua State Bank before she returned to the college in 1989 to work in the financial aid office. She became director of financial aid in 2008 and retired in 2016. She has subsequently been elected to the college’s Board of Trustees.
