(Editor's note: Jordan Gruber is Grove City High School's Class of 2009 valedictorian. He has requested - due to the controversy surrounding his right to address his class at graduation and the amount of interest in the content of his commencement speech - that Allied News publish his speech for public access. It follows.)

Well, those of you that know me, know I would really rather be out fishing right now. OK, seriously, I feel very blessed and indeed I am very blessed to be standing before you and speaking tonight as your 2009 valedictorian. I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who came to the May 11 school board meeting with me and signed the petition.

After that meeting as I was going home, I realized something humbling: I realized that everyone was expecting a really amazing and profound speech from me after all that we went through to get one! Then I realized that I would have to miss out on more fishing to prepare a speech. Originally, my plan was to come up here and adlib - obviously I have changed plans.

Class of 2009, as I was preparing this speech I was trying to think of all the things we have in common. That is hard when I don't even know the names of all of you that are graduating. I wish I had had the time to get to know each of you well. As I was reading a speech by Harold Ickes, I had an epiphany: I realized that I already know who you are, you are Americans. I don't need to know every name because I know that you are Americans and that will always be enough. I realized something else, though. I realized that it is not as cool as it once was to be an American. In our Grove City culture, it is cool to text in school, to tell "your mom" jokes, to send bumper stickers on FaceBook, cheat on warm-up laps in gym class, and to keep overdue library books so that your parents do not get your report card; but for some reason in our culture it is simply no longer cool to be an American.

I think that there are two reasons for that. First, being an American is a privilege that has been granted to us, not something earned by us. I thank God that our forefathers thought it worth their lives to make us Americans. This was their dream that we, their children, would be born free and can live free. We were born members of the greatest social experiment of all time: A government of the people by the people and for the people. Let us live up to our forefathers' dream.

Secondly, I think that we forget what it means to be Americans. In a speech titled "What is an American?", Harold Ickes describes an American as follows: "What is an American? Not color nor race nor religion. Not the pedigree of his family nor the place of his birth. Not the coincidence of his citizenship. Not his social status nor his bank account. Not his trade nor his profession. An American is one who loves justice and believes in the dignity of man. An American is one who will fight for his freedom and that of his neighbor. An American is one who will sacrifice property, ease and security in order that he and his children may retain the rights of free men. An American is one in whose heart is engraved the immortal second sentence of the Declaration of Independence."

The second sentence of the Declaration of Independence reads as follows: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Unfortunately, it is not always easy to be an American. It is not always easy to live up to the greatness for which our forefathers destined us. It is not easy because we are living in dangerous times, the world is turbulent, the economy is unstable, and our futures seem even more uncertain. I would like to read you some headline topics since 1990, the year that most of us graduating seniors were born: The Gulf War. The Oklahoma City bombing. The Centennial Olympic Park bombing. The Columbine High School shooting. President Clinton's impeachment trial and the Lewinsky scandal. The bombing of the USS Cole. Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. Hurricane Katrina. The Virginia Tech massacre. Somalian pirates.