From @lex-luthor.ai.mit.edu:HES@REAGAN.AI.MIT.EDU  Thu Jun 24 10:58:18 1993
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 10:44-0400
From: The White House <75300.3115@compuserve.com>
To: Clinton-News-Distribution@campaign92.org
Subject: President's Remarks to Presidential Scholars  6.23.93

                           THE WHITE HOUSE

                    Office of the Press Secretary

_____________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                   June 23, 1993

	     
                      REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
           DURING PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLARS MEDALLION CEREMONY
	     
                           The South Lawn

4:42 P.M. EDT

	     THE PRESIDENT:  I want to thank you all for being here 
and welcome the members of Congress who are here and those who were 
here who had to leave for a vote.  I want to say a special word of -- 
it's a good vote -- (laughter and applause) -- I want to say a 
special word of thanks to the Marine band for being here to play for 
us today.  (Applause.)  Thank you.  (Applause.)  Since my office is 
just over there, when they come out here to play for you, they also 
keep me in a far better frame of mind as I work through the day.
	     
	     I thank the Commission on Presidential Scholars for all 
the work that they have put into selecting this year's recipients.  I 
especially want to thank my good friend, Governor Florio, of New 
Jersey for his work as chairman.  (Applause.)  I asked him to serve 
as chairman because I admire the courage and conviction with which he 
has conducted himself as Governor of New Jersey and particularly the 
bravery that he showed in dealing with the educational needs of the 
people of his state.
	     
	     The Secretary of Education, Dick Riley, formerly was 
Governor of South Carolina, and in that connection he labored 
mightily for years to improve the education of the children of his 
state and served as a mentor of mine.  And I thank him for his 
leadership.  (Applause.)
	     
	     As I look out at this group today of proud parents and 
family members and friends and educators, I'm reminded once again of 
the curious mix of things that produces the sort of achievement that 
we see embodied in the young people on this stage today.  There are, 
unfortunately, still a lot of people in the United States who believe 
that how much you learn and how well you do in life depends primarily 
on your IQ.  And yet we know that if you strung all the people on the 
globe together from first to last by IQ, you couldn't stick a straw 
between any of the two.  A remarkable combination of ability and 
intangible things, like encouragement and love and support as well as 
personal effort and drive and commitment, go into making up really 
gifted learners who are committed to doing it for a lifetime.
	     
	     All the young people who have been acknowledged today 
have great natural talents, and they should be grateful for what God 
has given them.  But every person on this stage today -- not only 
them, but me -- we're all here because of the people who helped us 
along the way.
	     
	     There's a young man who was supposed to be here today 
named Justin Konrad from the state of Maine who on June the 5th was 
in an automobile accident that claimed the life of one of his friends 
and claimed part of one of his legs.  Today he's in a hospital in 
Maine recovering from his injuries.  I talked to him this weekend 
when I was up in Maine and he's already talking about going to 
Harvard and majoring in government and playing sports.  When he gave 
his -- let me see if I can pronounce this -- salutatorian's address 
at his high school graduation, he gave a speech about optimism -- and 
he still has it.  And I hope all of you will be able to keep it as 
you go through college and you pursue your careers.
	     
	     Keeping a positive frame of mind may sound like an 
obvious and easy thing.  It becomes increasingly difficult with a 
difficulty of circumstances, but more important, with every passing 
day.
	     
	     Last Saturday, just before I spoke with Justin by phone, 
I was speaking at the commencement of Northeastern University in 
Boston, and I met another young student there graduating from college 
named Doug Luffborough.  He was the person who was designated by his 
fellow students at Northeastern to speak on their behalf.  Doug's 
mother is a cleaning woman who earns $7,000 a year and who, in 
addition to her regular job, cleans a private school part-time to pay 
tuition for another of her sons.  For awhile, the mother and all of 
her children were actually homeless.  
	     
	     It's remarkable that this young man ever got to go to 
college at all.  The advice he got from one of his counselors was to 
give it up and start looking for a job.  But his mother believed in 
him and refused to let him aim low.  When she couldn't get a 
babysitter, she took him along to work.  And he watched her day in 
and day out never give up hope, and by her example he learned a 
powerful lesson.  When he came to Northeastern University, the school 
made it possible for him to work part-time while going to school; and 
his on-the-job experience helped him to get a very good job when he 
graduated.  He's shown an amazing amount of responsibility, but his 
mother stood by him, his school stood by him, and he had an employer 
who stood by him.  
	     
	     So no matter how heroic individuals are, they still need 
help to make it and support.  Chances of success increase 
dramatically when other people believe in you, give you 
opportunities, and ask you to take the responsibility to make the 
most of them.
	     
	     And I want to thank every person here today who made it 
possible for these young people to be up on this stage and to have 
the kind of life they're going to have.  (Applause.)
	     
	     I also want to say that this administration is working 
hard to open the doors of college education to all young people, to 
make it possible for them to get loans to go to college and to pay 
them back on much more favorable terms than has been the case in the 
past.  (Applause.)  And we are trying to pass with strong bipartisan 
support a national service program which will make it possible for 
tens of thousands of young people to earn credit against those loans 
before, during or after their college years by giving something back 
to their communities where they live.  (Applause.)
	     
	     Vice President Gore has just returned from California 
where he kicked off our Summer of Service program, which is the 
beginning of this national service effort.  I know that a lot of you 
have been involved in service programs.  
	     
	     I want to just ask -- I want recognize one of the 
scholars, MarLeice Hyde, from Valley High School in Afton, Wyoming.  
Where are you?  I want to tell you about her.  She organized the 
junior volunteer program at her local hospital, which contributed 
over 1,000 hours of community service at the hospital while holding 
two jobs, attending evening college courses, and meeting the 
responsibilities that come from being the oldest of six children.  
Let's give her a hand.  (Applause.)  Congratulations.  (Applause.)
	     
	     Finally, let me say a word about our educators.  We 
often spend our time talking about what's wrong with our educational 
system, but we ought to also acknowledge that there is a great deal 
that is right with it.  And a lot of these young people today might 
not be here were it not for their teachers, their principals, the 
people who worked with them and believed in them.  
	     
	     We think that the educators of America who are trying to 
do a good job shouldn't have to go it alone and should have some way 
of knowing whether they're meeting the competition around the globe.  
That's why Secretary Riley has worked so hard with his Goals 2000 
program and with the legislation now moving through Congress to 
embrace world class learning standards that all American schools will 
be given the opportunity to meet and that all American parents and 
students can judge their own progress by.  
	     
	     I am very encouraged by that work and very grateful for 
the cooperative spirit that we see now in Washington between 
everybody involved in the educational endeavor.  We think that Goals 
2000 will turn a nation at risk into a nation on the move in 
education.  
	     
	     Let me say in closing that I've thought a great deal 
about education this summer because I just celebrated under this same 
tent a couple of weeks ago my 25th college reunion.  I saw some of my 
classmates -- one of them runs a refugee center for Palestinians in 
Jordan.  One came all the way back from Cambodia where he had his 
life at risk monitoring the elections in that troubled country where 
once so many people were killed by tyranny.  Many of them have made 
incredibly valuable contributions to their lives.  And all of us were 
sitting here 25 years later in this very spot remembering with 
incredible vividness actual specific things our teachers had said to 
us in class.  We had a contest to remember how many verbatim 
sentences we could remember from different professors we had had.  
And everyone of us concluded at the end that none of our lives would 
have been possible if we hadn't had the benefit of a world class 
education.  
	     
	     I hope this presidential scholarship brings to all of 
you on this stage those kinds of memories 25 years from now.  I hope 
you will do everything you can to make the most of the opportunities 
before you.  And I hope you will take some time along the way to 
enrich the communities from which you came and the people who made it 
possible for you to be here today.  
	     
	     Thank you all.  Congratulations and God bless you.  
(Applause.)

                                 END4:52 P.M. EDT