The great eight: Saxony Lutheran's valedictorians

The 2017 valedictorian speech at Saxony Lutheran High School had a unique quality.

"It was one of the better student graduation speeches I've heard in a long time," said Mark Ruark, who heard his fourth such speech as the school's principal in May.

However, its most memorable characteristic was the eight-part delivery as Andrew Aufdenberg, Hannah Aufdenberg, Nathan Aufdenberg, Emily Buerck, Ben Daniel, Emily Killen, Rachael Koehler and Jonathan Mueller all stepped to the podium.

All eight had completed their four years at Saxony Lutheran with straight A's, each finishing with perfect 4.0 grade point averages.

While the school offers college-credit courses in its curriculum, it does not assign weighted value to them as many schools do. The school also does not rank students and chooses not to use any tie-breaker method such as ACT scores.

Ruark said it was a policy adopted prior to his time at the school, and one with which he agrees.

"We think all of our classes are very demanding academically, so we really feel like if you complete your educational tour at Saxony with a 4.0, it's a tremendous accomplishment, and we want to give everybody the due recognition rather than look for some alternative means to break a tie," Ruark said.

It was the third consecutive year the school had multiple valedictorians, surpassing the six that graduated with 4.0 averages in 2015.

"This was a unique senior class," Ruark said of the school's 14th graduating class and biggest, numbering 49. The uniqueness included three National Merit Finalists -- Andrew Aufdenberg, Nathan Aufdenberg and Killen.

The school, which opened in 1999 at the Activity Center at St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Cape Girardeau and moved to its current location in Jackson in 2004, had two previous National Merit Finalists in its entire history.

Ruark said the senior class also had a composite ACT score of 25.8, four points higher than the state average. He added that 36 of the graduates are going to attend four-year schools and seven more will attend two-year programs, with the group collectively being awarded more than $1 million in scholarships. Another impressive number was 16 students finishing with at least a full semester of college credit.

The school did not have a salutatorian for the first time as it moves toward cum laude academic recognition, which will acknowledge plateau levels for grade point.

"We will recognize the valedictorian in the next two classes, and then by 2020, we will no longer have a valedictorian," Ruark said. "We will only recognize the cum laude system, which is what a lot of universities do. But there are a lot of high schools that are moving in that direction as well, which I think is a good move to do that."

The Jefferson R-VII School District, where Ruark served as principal for five years before accepting the position at Saxony, used the cum laude system.

As for this year's valedictorian speech, Ruark said it was cleverly done and involved some humor.

"They did a really neat job and collaborated on their speech, so each person spoke for 2, 2 1/2 minutes, and their speech fed off what the other person said, so it was like one speech given by eight people, but they did a tremendous job," Ruark said.

Another memorable feature of the event was twins Andrew and Nathan Aufdenberg taking part in the valedictorian speech.

Ruark said he's not heard too much discontent within the school or the "school family" about the sharing of the top academic honor.

"But there are a lot of outsiders that say, 'Oh, you really should have only one valedictorian,'" Ruark said. "And it raises eyebrows, I'm quite certain, but you know, we feel like this is what's best for our school and best for our kids.

"I would much rather recognize too many kids than to slight somebody when it comes to academic grades."

jbreer@semissourian.com

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