Dear Class of 2016,

You witnessed a great year for athletics in your last year of high school.

Girls golf qualified for state for the first time in school history. Boys golf placed fifth at state. Girls cross country placed 16th and boys placed seventh at their state meet. Wrestling, swim and dive, tennis, and track all sent individual athletes to state.

Football and girls basketball both made playoffs. Girls volleyball, boys basketball, baseball and softball all made it to the second round of playoffs. Girls soccer made it to the quarter finals.

Badminton made it to the semi-finals for another great season and boys volleyball became only the fourth team in school history to be state runner-ups in a nail-biting state match.

I think we can all unanimously agree that 2015-2016 was one for the books. Of course, some people would disagree, but the class of 2016 has “gotten really good at ignoring people.” It doesn’t matter what anyone says, Class of 2016, you will always be Pumas.

We may go off to college, on missions, or to the workforce alone; as isolated from our pasts as Johnny Manziel is from the NFL. But we aren’t really alone. We will always have our legacy. Kids are going to still yell “Kobe” every time they shoot a wadded piece of paper into a trashcan. They will still call every play as “Omaha” on the playground. Even though Kobe and Peyton Manning have retired, their legacies live on.

The same goes for the Class of 2016. Twenty years from now that boys volleyball banner will still be hanging up in the gym. All of the hard work from 2015-2016 will still be remembered within the walls of Perry High School and you will carry them on to wherever you go next.

The rest of our lives may start out as messy as our March Madness brackets were this year, but eventually we will adjust to our new lives. We will settle in and everything will be okay until life Holly Holms us into the ground. We might spend a few minutes throwing a temper tantrum and crying into the elbow of our dab but no matter how hard we get hit, we will always get back up. We will make history by writing our own version of the Story.

We will work hard and not take short cuts. We don’t need to deflate things to be successful; all we need is pride, progress, and purpose. Yes, I’m talking about practice. Never stop practicing, even if you are 42 years old and it takes you 19 years, dreams do come true.

But no matter where you go in life, you will go there a Puma, because once a Puma, always a Puma.

You’ve done great things at Perry, Class of 2016, I can’t wait to see what your future holds.

Emma out.