West Ottawa HS class president adds Scripture to commencement address

Mon, Jun 9, 2008    to del.icio.us

PARK TOWNSHIP (AP) — Co-valedictorian Jed Grooters complied when school officials asked him not to include Scripture in his commencement speech.

But students and others attending Sunday's commencement ceremony at West Ottawa High School heard Bible passages anyway, thanks to class president Andrew Webster — who hadn't told anyone about his plans beforehand.

"If they weren't going to let Jed speak, I figured I could," Webster told The Holland Sentinel.

West Ottawa Public Schools officials, who had indicated that Grooters wouldn't be allowed to speak if he didn't drop verses from 1 Corinthians from his speech, said they wouldn't reprimand Webster.

"What I'll say about that is one of our speeches went longer than what was planned, but overall the kids did a great job," Principal Kent Henson said after the ceremony.

An attorney for the Ottawa County school district had advised that allowing Grooters to include Bible verses in his speech would violate the constitutional separation of church and state.

After receiving a standing ovation Sunday, Grooters concluded his address with the words, "Jesus loves you and that is the most important life lesson of all."

Webster, however, departed from his preapproved speech to include verses from the books of John and Ecclesiastes. He said he was inspired by Grooters's predicament.

"What I said is what I truly felt and saying anything else would not have been true to who I am," Webster said. "I wasn't expressing the views of the school, I was expressing my own views. ... I was told to write an essay about a life lesson and I did that."