06/26/2007

Vis Vobiscum

Grayling grad wows crowd — in Latin — at
Harvard graduation with 'Star Wars'-themed speech

BY JOLYNN PAIGE
Special to the Record-Eagle

Special to the Record-Eagle/Reuters
Charley McNamara addresses the crowd — yes, that's Bill Gates smiling up at McNamara — during Harvard University's 356th graduation ceremonies held recently. The 2003 Grayling graduate gave an eight-minute speech in Latin.

Can you say "Star Wars” in Latin?

Charley McNamara can. In fact, the 2003 Grayling High School graduate was a Latin-speaking Jedi knight when he addressed the crowd at Harvard University's 356th graduation ceremonies recently.

An audience of 35,000 listened to him deliver an eight-minute speech — written by him, and entirely in Latin, no less — on the subject of Harvard and ... "Star Wars”?

"The tradition at Harvard has always been for the Latin orator to speak on a subject that is funny. I thought it would be fun to compare the Harvard experience to the adventures of a 'Star Wars' movie,” said McNamara, talking by cell phone from a noisy school bus in Houston, Texas.

After having graduated cum laude from Harvard's classics department where he found himself "lit on fire” with the desire to study Latin, McNamara currently is in an intensive training course in Houston for the Teach for America program. He will start his two-year stint teaching high school English this fall, working in a rural community in Arkansas.

"I wanted to treat Harvard a little less seriously because I think a lot of people in America and in the world have this view that Harvard is this cloistered institution —but it's a lot of fun,” he said. "It is not purely academic.”

McNamara's speech was so well liked that he received a standing ovation from his fellow Harvard classmates. The speech is also now being circulated all over the Internet, is posted on You Tube, and is being eaten up by "Star Wars” fans from around the world.

Why Latin for this young, bright-minded scholar?

"A few years back, I had the opportunity to study Latin at the Vatican,” he said. "Latin is not a dead language, and I learned that there are many, many volumes of human history that have yet to be translated from Latin. That's what got me interested.”

McNamara said he realized in studying Latin that the human experience has not changed all that much over the course of the past few thousand years.

"We have so much yet to learn from these old texts, and I want to be part of that learning, " he said.

Several dignitaries were in attendance at the ceremony including Bill Gates, who delivered the commencement address; Sen. John Kerry, Democratic candidate for the 2004 presidential election; Barry Russell, legendary basketball player for the Boston Celtics; and Larry Summers, former president of Harvard, to name a few.

"When he told me about a month ago that he was selected to give the Latin oration at Harvard, I knew I was proud, but I had no idea how proud until last Saturday,” said Charley's father, Michael, in a conversation the week after graduation.

Michael said Bill Gates was impressed, and that Kerry was so impressed that he approached Charley after the ceremonies and invited him to come to Washington to work for him.

"To think that he delivered such a tremendously entertaining and difficult speech by memory in front of so many people was just astonishing,” said Michael, who lives in Grayling with wife Beverly. "He's an extraordinary young man, and we're very proud of him.”

McNamara's former high school counselor, Lynn Thompson also is proud, but not surprised.

"Charley was the ideal student,” she said. "He loved to learn, and soaked up everything he could in high school. He was bright, but never arrogant, and people really respond to him in a positive way.”

McNamara was Grayling High School's class of 2003 valedictorian and homecoming king, a combination that Thompson said is rare.

"Sometimes you have the brightest kids in the room who are a little standoffish,” Thompson said. "Not Charley.

"It's just great to see that someone from a small-town school like Grayling can do so well at a place like Harvard. We're all very proud of Charley.”

Meanwhile, McNamara gets the last word.

"Precor ut illa Vis Vobiscum sit,” he said.

Or, "May The Force be with you.”