POULSBO — Of all of the pomp, prestige, processionals and parties of graduation this past weekend, one of North Kitsap High School’s three valedictorians, Jack Ramsey, offered some of the most blunt and brilliant advice to the North Kitsap class of 2006.

“Live with passion, seek out those things that make you happy. Go out into the world and just rock it!” Ramsey said closing his valedictorian speech at the NKHS graduation ceremony June 17.

He then promptly called upon his friends and the class of 2006 to join him in ringing in the momentous occasion with the ultimate song of accomplishment, Queen’s “We are the Champions.”

Like mass karaoke, the 390 soon-to-be graduates rose from their seats and sang along in less-than-perfect harmony, resonating their Viking pride for an adoring audience that overflowed the confines of the NKHS stadium.

But the Queen anthem was not the only song that would be sung for the Viking graduation. The NKHS choir performed a piece called “The Innocent Age,” arranged by graduating senior Ricky Delaney while Emma Williams and Kara Ryan performed a soulful duet and Katie Webster rocked the house with a country song that asked “Who says you can’t go home?”

At the beginning of the ceremony, elders from the Suquamish and Port Gamble S’klallam tribes took midfield with drums in hand, blessing its tribal graduates with the “Honors Song.”

“Boy, I think only getting diplomas could top that,” Herrera said following Ramsey’s speech and sing along.

At that point, he was right.

The NKHS graduates lined up at either end of the stage, waiting to hear their name. And with a diploma, a handshake and a wave, the seniors’ whole game had changed.

“As you reach for your goals, remember that it’s been perseverance, commitment and your sense of values that have taken you this far,” Herrera said. “Each of you, class of 2006, have left your footprints on the communities of North Kitsap.”

In that same token, all of NK’s seniors — NKHS and Spectrum — have also left a mark on each teacher who has taught them.

“You’ve lived and breathed community, you have become the school,” Spectrum teacher Bob GeBalle told the Ravens’ 43-member graduating class. “We want you to leave us with a sense of your rights and responsibilities to yourself, your community and the world. We hope that your years at Spectrum will stay in your heart as a touchstone.”

Spectrum’s community celebrated its graduates June 16 at the North Kitsap auditorium in a lively ceremony complete with “Hollas!” from the audience and a “Holla Back!” from Tyhia McCarroll on stage.

“(Spectrum) has opened my eyes to new ways to live my life and see my world,” McCarroll said in summation of her high school years at the school.

Now that these students’ high school days have reached completion, each one will be stepping up to the next rung on the ladder of life.

“Simply experiencing an environment of learning enables you to view the world in a new light,” the Viking valedictorian Ramsey said.

“There are so many ways to be educated; the future will depend on people with unlikely talents and diversified abilities,” he added.

Educators agreed that the future depends on the youth and the young adults who crossed the Spectrum and NKHS graduation stages have the potential to be tomorrow’s Einstein or Thomas Edison.

At Spectrum’s ceremony, Katie Conroy quoted Edison’s wisdom to the class of 2006, saying, “If we did the things we were capable of, we’d astound ourselves.”