A Final Word to our Old Boys

As we celebrate our fifteenth graduating class and see them leave campus after many years, Mr. Mitch Thomas offers a "Final Word to our Old Boys." He begins on telling how the piece came about.

"Right after my high school graduation, the last thing a teacher ever told me came from Mr. Stegall. As I was leaving the school, he met me on the way out and he looked at me and said simply, 'God bless you, Mitchell.' I have never forgotten it. So, one evening I was sitting on the patio, and I recalled that experience and wondered what I would say to our own boys who are moving on. The following is what came to me..."

A FINAL WORD TO OUR OLD BOYS
By Mr. Mitchell Thomas

Boys, remember, God will never forsake you.

Oh, I know you’ve heard it before. I know how it is. The world is your oyster. You’ve got the tiger by the tail. You’ll be going here and there. You’ll be doing this and that. For the life you’ve lived up to now, is, at last, becoming your life. Life is now becoming your life. You’ll now own it, lock, stock, and barrel. And then will come that day when this fact, once the sense of exhilaration, will turn to a source of anxiety. For your parents have done all they could, for better or worse. Now it will be yours to do for better or for worse. Then you will know. Then you will know the blessing and burden of freedom. Then you will know freedom’s enduring fork in the road- freedom as the allure of revelry or as the aim of responsibility. And then, maybe, many years from now- in the board room or in rush hour, or before the annoyed wife or the errant child- maybe you’ll call to mind, with one part shame but two parts solace, my words spoken to you today:  

“Boys, remember, God will never forsake you.”

Western's next set of 43 Old Boys, this year's Class of 2026