Owatonna Names Student Speakers for Commencement

Owatonna High School seniors will collect their diplomas during a graduation ceremony on Friday, June 3. Commencement speakers were just announced as Dakota Kath and Fardouza Farah as reported by the OHS Magnet student news site.

Kath told Magnet reporter Callie Kreutter, "It's going to be about how success is more of a condition than a characteristic...There's gonna be ups and downs, you're going to have those wins and losses but it's important to acknowledge both."

Fardouza indicated, "I had a speech written from my public speaking class and I thought it would be fun to see what I could do with that so I decided to try out to be a commencement speaker."

Kath plans to attend the University of Minnesota-Duluth and major in foreign language and secondary education. Fardouza will attend Yale University with a major in political science on a pre-law track.

Both Kath and Fardouza participated in the state speech meet earlier this spring.

Speakers for OHS graduation are chosen through a tryout process that began in April with school staff acting as judges. Owatonna Principal Kory Kath said, "What was really fun about that is you get to see so many different perspectives of what they want to say to their class." Six students auditioned.

The Magnet provides features for several retiring teachers.

• Susan Erickson (written by Kennedy Wilker)
• Doug Maine (writen by Landen Johnson)
• Scott Pierce (written by Audrey Simon)
• Marv Tjaden (written by Alex Huemoeller)

Read More: Owatonna Magnet Earns Distinguished Site Award