Gov. Bredesen encourages spring grads with advice and humor

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (May 6, 2006) — Gov. Phil Bredesen borrowed humor and wisdom from a group of 1st graders he met last year as he addressed the 1,151 graduates, their family and friends at Tennessee Tech University’s commencement on Saturday.

Saying he received a few pieces of advice from children he visited last year while talking about Pre-K education, he mixed their suggestions with practical advice to exhort and instruct graduates.

“Number one on the list was a governor must know how to tell time,” he said. “Believe me, I understand this is important — although my staff may beg to differ with me from time to time.

"I’ve always been a ‘techie’ at heart, an early adopter of almost every new technological thing,” he continued. “And someone asked me once in a group what was the piece of technology that had been most important in my life. I thought for a second and gave him a completely honest answer: the alarm clock.”

Emphasizing that it is not always the person who is the smartest or gets the best grades who succeeds, the governor underlined what he says he thinks it takes to succeed.

“I graduated 40 years ago, and went back to a reunion last fall,” he said. “Some of the summa cum laudes with their 4.0 averages were puttering around in nothing jobs, and some of those who I feel sure were a despair to their teachers have moved the world. When you talked with them, it was focus and hard work that told the tale.”

Gov. Bredesen also encouraged graduates to think about what is important to them now and what will be important to them in the future.

“When you wake up some morning years from now, and it’s your 80th birthday, how do you tell if you did good or not?

“For me, doing important stuff comes down to your ability to be effective as a human being. To develop the ability to engage with the world and make something happen in it. To not be just a passive traveler,” he explained.

“Whether it is in business or careers or your relationships with others, it is always easier to think behind, to live in a world of reacting to what has already happened and not in a world of what might be,” he said.

Students graduating from Tennessee Tech this spring represented 17 states, 79 Tennessee counties and 20 other countries. Degrees were awarded in 42 undergraduate and 19 graduate fields of study. Graduates’ years of birth ranged from 1945 to 1985. TTU has granted more than 58,000 degrees

Prior to commencement, the university ROTC Battalion held its spring commissioning ceremony. Chad A. Barnes, Jeremiah B. Brashear, Nathan Shane Chumbler, Brent A. Dalton, Joe F. Green Jr., Chad A. House, John W. Toliver III, and Jason N. Warren received their commissions as second lieutenants and later in the day received their degrees.

During commencement about 200 students received graduate degrees and more than 100 received specialist in education degrees. Two received doctor of philosophy degrees.

--Karen Lykins
This information posted 8 MAY 2006