"You'll Always Be A Viking"

A packed crowd filled the Greensfelder Recreation Complex at Queeny Park Tuesday night to bid best wishes to __ Class of 2011.

The class was more than 350 strong, and included National Merit finalists, honorees for community service, a perfect ACT score, more than $9 million in scholarships earned, and, by this writer's count, three beachballs in the crowd.

Three seniors were chosen by the class to give remarks. Remi Balogun talked about how the students' lives mirrored some of the movies which had come out in the past year, like the coming of age tale of Toy Story 3, when Andy goes off to college. Calvin Irwin also celebrated a birthday Tuesday, earning a serenade from those assembled. Irwin talked about what he might find his fellow graduates doing decades from now. Dorian Hobbs, Jr. was the last to speak. Hobbs, a guard on the boy's basketball team, will move on to play at Culver-Stockton, talked about the importance of not peaking in high school.

Tuesday capped years of hard work for the Parkway North Class of 2011, and this group will move on, to schools around the country, from Southern Methodist to Xavier, the University of Chicago and beyond. But, as Parkway Board of Education member Tom Applebaum told them, "You'll always be a Viking."

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