Dr. Kopp, members of the administration and faculty, distinguished guests, fellow alumni and members of the Class of 2008----

I am pleased to welcome you, the Sons and Daughters of the great John Marshall—to membership in the Marshall University Alumni Association! And, to share with you the accomplishment of receiving your diploma, earned, in your case in the classroom, and mine, in this case the result of the graciousness of the President and staff of this very great and important University of West Virginia. Thank you all very much. And to the graduates here and elsewhere, my deepest congratulations.

My relationship with Marshall University goes far beyond that of Senate President where I am involved in creating legislation and developing budgets. I not only earned my MBA here, but I found my bride as well. For that, Dr. Kopp, I will always be indebted to this school.

Congratulations, as well, to Marshall University, whose grads will benefit from the “Bucks for Brains” legislation I co-sponsored along with the leadership provided by Dr. Kopp, is now law.

I am convinced that this legislation will become one of the greatest advances for the school, Huntington and West Virginia, resulting in economic development through research. If we do little else in our careers, Dr. Kopp, this will be one of those achievements we can look back on with pride knowing we worked together in achieving a good thing. And, to you graduates, you have achieved a good thing as well.

As many of you in this body today attended and graduated from schools from the small villages and towns of West Virginia, my background is no different. As a student at Chapmanville High School, about 50 miles up the Guyandotte River, relatively very few went on to obtain degrees, most immediately entering the job market either in the deep mines of our rich coalfields or off to places such as Detroit, Cleveland or some industrialized city of the north.

There was a popular question of the time, which asked “How do you get 27 West Virginians in a Volkswagon Beetle? Answer, open the doors and tell ‘em its going to Cleveland.”

Jobs were scarce and not that many families emphasized getting a college education. Cultural barriers, economic pressures and a general lack of encouragement and counseling, were part of the causes of this neglect.

But, the world has changed much in these intervening years, with many more getting formal educations and training. There are challenges for the educational system, there are vast improvements in success rates, but we know we have a lot of work to do on all fronts, both in government, academia and in our homes and schools as well.

As my mind, though returns to the years when I went to high school and headed for another university up north!--- I still remember the motto of my old high school “winners never quit, and quitters never win.” I call to your mind this old adage because it is the one thing your class has in common with mine—and that is the challenge to recognize and seize the opportunities which will present themselves throughout the course of your lives.

One of the major problems we deal with annually, recalled to us each year at graduation time, is the outflow of educated young people to other states. Addressing the challenge of the “Brain Drain” is of the highest priority to the Legislature and every facet of state government.

I understand that by virtue of your chosen vocation, you may have to go elsewhere to seek your niche’ in life, but when and where you can, I ask you, even implore you, to consider staying in West Virginia, to seek the opportunities which can be found here, if you are dedicated to the challenge of seeking them out.

You may find that it is easier to swim in this pond as a big fish, than as a little fish in a big ocean. I stayed, and struggled at times, and have never regretted not leaving these beautiful hills and valleys.

The diploma you receive today is not a guarantee of success of any kind, but a tool to tap into the pipeline of prosperity which has linked this globe into an international community of commerce and intellect.

It also represents to that competitive world, that you possess a level of achievement and competency, which allows you to enter the marketplace of employment with an advantage. Even that, however, is not enough.

It will take your personal initiative and drive and in like fashion the collective efforts of your classmates to insure your common part of this success and for that of the nation. Unforseen and unique opportunities will come your way and you will attempt to secure them. Some of you will succeed and some of you will not—the first time.

If you find yourself in the latter of those two categories, the true test of your character will be wether or not you allow yourself to remain defeated, or will you take it for what it is worth, a valuable lesson in life and keep trying, building on the foundation of so-called failure.

No one is a failure who picks himself up from off the ground and keeps trying. The only failures in life are those who quit. Who stay down and give up—they abdicate the opportunity to win.

One of my favorite graduation speeches once given by a guy who did not quit was given by Winston Churchill, speaking to grads said “Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, give up!” And sat down without another word.

He knew that the graduate with the true American spirit was one who wanted his diploma and then to the party later that afternoon!

The ability to begin again is one of the most needed, yet untaught skills in this competitive world of ours. Yet it has its own beginning in the heart—that part of us which keeps us moving forward in the face of overwhelming obstacles.

If you are looking for some advice about your future, with any direction you may take, I admonish you to keep on trying....

But most of all, keep on learning...regardless of the degree you have earned today, education is more than noun—it should be a verb and not one in the past tense.

You have been educated, given the tools you need to begin. The education of life, of attempts at success are parts of an active, ongoing process which ceases, when our bodies have completed the task of our physical world.

You will learn even more through experience, travel, going back to school, inter-relationships with others and through the tried and tested method of success and failure.

The most successful person here most likely will be one who has had to “begin again” several times, who has had to overcome the frustrations of trying, learning how to walk through the barnyard without getting anything on your shoes! It can be done, you just have to learn where and where not to step!

But, it cannot be accomplished unless you take that first step of faith in yourself and in the combined knowledge which began at home and in the classroom.

Consider for a moment those revolutionaries who came together in Philadelphia, even with their own doubts and fears, pounded out the framework of a Democracy and the new American nation.

With few exceptions they were young men, labeled as traitors with death warrants published against them.

They had little more than a questioning and doubtful determination at times, knowing they faced the strongest military and maritime power on Earth. Yet they pledged their lives, their reputations and their fortunes for a cause that as many as half their countrymen had opposed—liberty from an overbarren monarch.

Even your alma mater’s namesake, John Marshall, was among those whose Federalist zeal and association with the great statesman and patriot John Adams, provided us the yet greatest example of Yankee stubbornness and integrity, as an envoy to France, and as well as bequeathing to us a Supreme Court which venerates his name today after two centuries of his absence.

They remember him for setting before the country, and the world for that matter, that through our system of checks and balances, the court is the final arbiter of constitutional questions through judicial review, trumped only by the will of the people to change that most important of republican documents.

He took a risk, and made history.

Where would the country be today, have you ever asked yourself, if Lincoln had not prevailed and saved the union? What kind of country would we have become? At one point in his presidency he stood nearly alone, his own party ready to make peace with the South and let it go its own way. He stood in the gap—he knew the Union had to be preserved whatever the cost. As a result a new nation was born, ready for the time when it would be needed to defeat the enemies of freedom of the 20th Century.

The ‘what ifs’ of history are intriguing. Consider Franklin Roosevelt. Had he decided, by the unfair cruelty of his crippling polio, not to try to learn to walk? Or to continue his quest for the presidency at a time when it would be required to end a depression? Or even later to muster the strength from a weakened body to lead the nation to save the World from fascism?

FDR not only overcame his handicap, but helped the country to overcome its own fear of fear itself.

Even today, men and women of vision seek to knock down the barriers which have, through the prejudices and unfairness of times past, prevented many of their forebearers from achieving the potential of their calling. Each one of the remaining presidential candidates are barrier breaking individuals—as John Kennedy, who faced down death in the Pacific in World War II, faced down those who said he could not be president simply because he was Catholic.

Have you ever been told that no one in your station in life has ever accomplished the goal which drives you to succeed? Have you been told it is impossible for you to attain the goals you have set for yourself because it has never been done before? No doubt there are some of you who were told not to bother to attend college, because you were not smart enough to earn a degree. I am thankful for all our sakes that you did not listen to these negative voices, but will continue to take a chance on yourself. And continue to be determined not to quit, but to be a winner always.

It will be someone maybe from the class of 2008, who will bring us America’s next burst of freedom. And from what beachhead will it explode? Will it be from the world of politics? Of social or religious reform? From science, perhaps? Or could it come from the sweeping changes we witness everyday in technology?

Wherever and whenever it comes, there is no doubt it is coming because change is always present with us. The question is who will arise to meet the opportunity, to seize the moment to bring us to our next level of greatness?

I suggest my fellow graduates, that if you are willing, it could be you.