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Governor Jindal addresses Graduates at OLHCC Commencement
May 27 , 2008
'There's no place like home,' Jindal says Gov. Bobby Jindal told Our Lady of Holy Cross College graduates at Commencement that they didn't have to leave Louisiana to find opportunity. "Dorothy from 'The Wizard of Oz' was right: 'There's no place like home,' " he said. "You can dream big right here at home." The governor spoke at the Our Lady of Holy Cross College commencement ceremonies on May 11 at the Alario Center in Westwego. Before his address, the Rev. Anthony De Conciliis, C.S.C., OLHCC President, conferred honorary doctorates on Governor Jindal, St. Bernard Parish school Superintendent Doris Voitier and businessman and philanthropist Michael Rapier. 191 students received degrees from Our Lady of Holy Cross College. During his 15-minute address, Jindal quipped about his daughter's love of Catholic school because of the better lunches and his father's tales of walking back and forth to school uphill, both ways. |  |
"They didn't have school buses or downhill when he was going to school," said Jindal who added that he was motivated in school by his father, whose education ended after fifth grade.
The graduates sitting before him had likely also been inspired by their parents in their education, he said, but they shouldn't consider this the end of their education.
"May you never stop learning," he said. "When people stop learning, we become arrogant."
He also urged students at the Catholic institution to live ethically and faithfully, or their successes will be empty: "nothing more than a facade for real failure."
Over the years, Jindal said Louisiana has exported gas, oil, culture and its sons and daughters "who felt they had to leave home to pursue their dreams."
Jindal said that he'd called his mother that morning to wish her a happy Mother's Day, and that she had told him she was proud of him, but for her, his greatest achievement was her grandchildren.
So, Jindal told the graduates, before looking for an out-of-state job, consider the parents in the audience.
"They're looking forward to the day when you fulfill your real purpose by giving them grandchildren," he said. "And they're not letting you take those grandchildren out of this state."
