Plagiarizing Principal Tells Springstead High Valedictorian to Rewrite Speech

If I had a daughter, I’d want her to be a lot like Jem Lugo, a bright and funny senior at Springstead High School in Hernando County. As valedictorian, she was tasked with writing a speech to deliver at her school’s graduation ceremony.

I’ve been to several commencement exercises and the speeches given by the smartest kids in class are usually devoid of humor and almost always ignored by the audience. After five years in education and countless ceremonies, not one speech stands out.

Jem is a bright girl. She’s heading to Harvard, after all. She researched speeches online and found they were boring and uninspiring. So she decided to be different.

For my readers, the story is a familiar one.

Using wit and wisdom, she crafted a speech that would make her audience laugh and think. She says she didn’t advocate anything immoral or illegal.

Principal Susan Duval went apeshit anyway and decided that her speech had to go.

The reason? Jem’s address was too “individualized.” She didn’t conform to the parameters of the template for valedictorian speeches.

In other words, her words would keep people awake.

Jem was disappointed and hurt by the negative reaction. Oh, aren’t we all? She cried and wondered what to do, but ultimately decided to rewrite the speech so she could appear with honor in front of her graduating class.

Just another story of mediocre minds quelling those who see things differently. Just another writer who is misunderstood and resisting attempts from others to force conformity down her throat.

I told you it was a familiar story.

Yet this one has a twist.

Nowhere in the Tribune story does it mention that Principal Susan Duval has had her own trouble with commencement speeches.

In 2005, she stood before the graduating class and began, “I would like to share some personal thoughts with you…”

Then the bitch went on to read almost verbatim from a famous column originally published in The Chicago Tribune.

“Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.”

“Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements. Stretch.”

Duval never gave Schmich credit for the speech. In an interview on Thursday, Duval said she had come across the speech while doing research on the Internet but did not learn the name of the author.

“I was searching for material I could quote,” Duval said. “I never even saw a Chicago Tribune column. … It was certainly not my intent (to plagiarize).”

Duval also said she did not intend to claim authorship of the speech, even though she had introduced it as some of her “personal thoughts.”

After getting busted, Duval didn’t seem to give a shit.

“Was I turning this in for a grade? No,” she said.

Nice. She probably figured the people in Hernando County wouldn’t be familiar with a newspaper article written way up north in Chicago.

Now she believes they can’t take a joke either.

I believe the good people of Hernando County and Springstead High deserve an apology. If I were Duval, I’d get Jem to write it.

Tags: Jem Lugo, Springstead High, Springstead High Valedictorian, Susan Duval