Leesburg High School Senior Wins Graduation Speech Contest

LEESBURG, VA — U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine is posting the best speeches submitted by high school students across Virginia on his Facebook page and website in response to his “Everybody’s the Graduation Speaker” video contest. On Tuesday, the Virginia senator posted a speech by a graduating senior at Tuscarora High School in Leesburg.

Kaine will be posting one high school senior’s speech each day over the next month and a half. The senator posted the first speech on Monday.

With many in-person high school graduations postponed or canceled due to the coronavirus, Kaine encouraged Virginia’s graduating high school seniors to submit a video of an original speech they would like to give at graduation. Kaine said he felt a sense of loss for the graduates and wanted to give all high school seniors in Virginia the chance to be a graduation speaker.

“One of the many groups of Virginians I’ve been thinking about during this challenging time is the graduates of the class of 2020, many of whom won’t have the graduation experience they’ve been planning for a long time," Kaine said in a statement.

On Tuesday, Kaine posted a speech by Anna, a member of the class of 2020 at Tuscarora High School. In her speech, Anna said it's scary to think about what lies ahead due to the coronavirus. But she expressed confidence that her classmates and rest of the world "can handle whatever comes about from this."

Anna encouraged her classmates and everyone else to be open with their emotions and their feelings in these unprecedented times in order "to cope with our problems in a healthy way."

The Tuscarora High School senior also applauded the strength of her classmates. "I'm so incredibly impressed by the resilience of the students in the class of 2020 and their ability to turn any situation into a positive one," Anna said.

Anna closed her speech by saying the class of 2020 will always have a special bond because of what they've had to endure and "that is truly beautiful."