I wish I would have given more thought to my senior quote. Like a tattoo or a piercing, a senior quote has a certain permanence. Look at the Filer High School yearbook from 1994, and you will find my name, along with a bright-eyed picture of me in a tuxedo top exuding the BO of a thousand 18-year-old boys. (Do they ever wash those tuxedo tops?) Beneath the photo, you can glimpse into the soul of a youthful me by reading my senior quote, “The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.” I have since discovered that this quote is a business maxim about the second-mover advantage. To an 18-year-old me, it was a mantra justifying my chronic lateness.  

My son is currently a senior in high school and searching for a senior quote. Being more thoughtful than I was, he understands the gravity of choosing a quote that reveals who he is as a young adult to time immemorial.

Adding to the challenge, my nephew graduated last year with a senior quote that was the perfect combination of unique, funny and personal. The quote could have come from Vince Lombardi, if Vince Lombardi was a team roper. “Winning isn’t everything … here, hold my buckle while I kiss your girlfriend.” The attribution may be the best part; the quote was hanging above the urinals at his local indoor roping arena. That is the epic standard set for my son.

My son is fairly witty, and I suggested he use one of his own quotes.

• “A bounce house is just a cage fight for children.”
•  “Never let a Texan shape your hat.” (When I shared this quote with a Texan friend, he asked, “When did folks in your region start shaping their hats?”)
• “We could solve world hunger if we could figure out how to reheat cold french fries into something yummy.”
• “If we ride horses and eat cows, then do bull riders ride cows and eat horses?”
• And my favorite, “A vegan should be able to eat animal flesh if it dies of natural causes … and there is nothing more natural than a bolt to the head.”

I know … they’re pretty good. After he got over his indignation at me secretly recording his deepest thoughts, he laughed and decided on a more traditional senior quote.

The senior quote can be broken up into three broad categories: the academic, the fortune cookie and the comic.

The academic is a quote the valedictorian would use … a quote from history, literature or philosophy. Examples of the academic are:

• “Wow, that’s a lot of Indians.” – Colonel George A. Custer
• “Pi-r-squared? No, pie are round. Cake are square.” – Archimedes
•  “I know a shortcut. Follow me.” – George Donner

Most of the actual academic quotes are much stodgier than my examples, but you get the picture.

The fortune cookie, as a category, usually omits attribution because no one wants to claim the quote. The fortune cookie tries, in vain, for profundity. The most famous fortune cookie quote is, “Seize the day.” Maybe it is inspirational in the original Latin, but it requires a paragraph of explanation. Such is the case with the fortune cookie. More examples are:

• “Never forget a friend, especially if they owe you money.”
• “If a turtle loses his shell, is he naked or homeless?”
• “He who laughs last doesn’t really get the joke.”

The final category is my most favorite – the comic. These quotes might make the reader chuckle. I have thousands of examples of this, but will only share one:

• “Don’t pick anything weird for your senior quote.” – Mom

The quote my son settled on really does fit him and is worth sharing with you. The quote was in the December issue of the Western Horseman. As most of you know, Baxter Black wrote a column for the back page of the Western Horseman called On the Edge of Common Sense. Dr. Black died in June 2022, and the magazine ran his remaining columns. The December issue had his last column and a nice tribute to the good doctor. Beside his column was a quote attributed to Baxter Black that said, “There are people who profoundly change your life. Sometimes they don’t even know it.”

I think this quote best describes Baxter Black himself. For two generations, Baxter Black was the voice of rural America. He gave both me and my son material to read, something that seemed to elude both of us. He spoke for us, about us and to us for over 40 years. And now, he is gone, leaving some very big boots to fill.

To the class of 2023, I ask: Who is going to fill the boots left empty with the passing of Baxter Black? The answer is simple: You will. With the democratization of media over the past 20 years, it has never been easier for your voice to be heard. Take that opportunity seriously. No one person will be the voice of rural America for the next generation. We can all have our own voice … if we so choose.