The Westlake High School Class of 2013 graduated on Tuesday, June 4 in a ceremony at Showplace Arena in Upper Marlboro. Receiving diplomas were 338 seniors who Principal Crystal Benson called “multi-talented and diversely unique.” It was the school’s 18th graduation ceremony.

“You have worked and sometimes played, but most of all you have grown,” the principal said, noting the $8.3 million in scholarships was an indication of that hard work.

Benson said the graduates’ challenges have only begun. “You have excelled in all areas but you must not rest because there are many challenges ahead of you.” The principal noted that the class motto was: “Our lives are before us. The past is behind us. But our memories are forever with us.”

The school’s nickname is the Wolverines, and Benson observed “We are remembered by the tracks we leave.”

Benson told of the football team losing second round of playoffs at Huntingtown High School last year. She said one of the football players said to her after the defeat: “I tried. I tried all that I could,” Benson said she would like that thought to go into the future with the new graduates.

President of the Class of 2013 Dasia Spriggs charged her class with “Live your life with purpose.” She added, “There is something exceptional in every person who sits before me.” She concluded: “The race is time and in the end it is only within yourself.”

Class Salutatorian Samantha Wood achieved the Class of 2013 second highest cumulative Grade Point Average (GPA). She observed that a salutatorian misses being a valedictorian by a few GPA points. “Second place is just the first loser,” she quipped, but added that at least it forced her to write the speech.

Wood quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson: “You do not know where the path leads. Go where there is no trail.” She ended by thanking her family and teachers, and also her friends, to whom she said, “You have all been the source of laughter that kept me sane.”

Wood will attend the University of Maryland College Park and plans to study biochemical bioengineering.

Class of 2013 Valedictorian Alyssa Kepner is also attending the University of Maryland College Park and plans to major in mathematics. She congratulated her classmates. “Twelve years is a long time to stay focused,” she said, “but somehow we made it.”


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