05/27/2026
Board Member Donna Amburgey & I attended Camargo Elementary’s 5th Grade Graduation this morning. Such a beautiful & impressive group of kids! They are an excellent testament to an amazing team of educators! Thank you to their principal, the incomparable Dr. Dudley McKenna, for allowing me to say a few words:
Good morning. My name is Shaunna Patton and I am the Montgomery County School Board Member from District 4, which encompasses a great deal of the southern end of the county. I could not be more proud of the amazing people I am privileged to represent and I am honored to be able to share a few thoughts with you all today.
I have had occasion recently to think about and do some looking into our area's history. Having grown up in Jeffersonville, I always figured that it was named after some farmer named Jefferson. Well it turns out it was! Camargo apparently was named by soldiers returning from the Mexican American War, who named it for the Mexican city where they were stationed. Or if you want to believe a more colorful idea, it may have been named for a popular Mexican singer of the time whose name was Camargo.
Anyway, that farmer named Jefferson...his first name was Thomas. You may have heard of him. He came from a long line of farmers. Now really really big farms, mind you! But he was very smart and worked super hard and took advantage of all opportunities offered to him and got a great education. He was brave and participated in his community and tried to be there when anyone needed him. In fact, he was such a great servant leader that he became the 3rd President of the United States. He was also a great writer. You may have heard of some of the things he wrote. One of them was called the Declaration of Independence, which he wrote with some help from his friends. Now, while I have lots of fun facts about Thomas Jefferson, we sure don't have time to talk about all of them today.
I do want to tell you about a couple of smart things he said because they might be helpful to you as you start your new adventures, whether you are a student graduating or the family who will be supporting them along the way.
One of the smart things he is known to have said is "If you want something you never had, you must be willing to do something you've never done." That can go for an individual person or it can go for a family or a community. You never have to settle for anything just because it's how it's always been. If you want things to be different, you can choose that with different actions.
Another thing Jefferson said was "I find the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." There will be people along your journey who will call you lucky. They say this either out of congratulations or out of jealousy. I personally believe that luck doesn't exist. The things people call luck are either blessings from God or results of very hard work, and generally a combination of the two.
Our beautiful little piece of the world has been touched by other significant people and events from history as well. In 1937, as part of a WMA project during the Great Depression, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited Camargo and helped lay the cornerstone of this very building, which of course has undergone many renovations since then. The stone still out front if you want to see it! Eleanor wasn't just married to the President, she was a super smart lady and she worked very hard for the American people. She once said something pretty smart that I want to share with you today - "No one can ever make you feel inferior without your permission." If along the way you encounter people who want to tell you that you are less than or not good enough for any reason, remember that their words have no power unless you choose to believe them. Usually people who say nasty things to other people have big problems in their own hearts. Their nasty behavior has nothing to do with you - it's a result of their own problem.
The last thing I'll tell you is something I myself have learned and that I believe more every day. I graduated from fifth grade here at Camargo, back in the 1900s, and I can tell you that at least about this community, there is one thing that is true. You are never alone. Whether something really awful or really great is happening to you, it's happening not just to you but to those around you as well. Whether you make a really great choice or a really stupid one, it's going to impact your family and your community. You don't suffer or celebrate alone. So make great choices, for yourself and those around you, and never believe you have to suffer alone. Always reach out for help. And never ever give up. Hard work and diligence toward the goals you believe in in your heart not only elevate you, but also your family and your community. And if you don't believe that, go read some more about that farmer named Thomas Jefferson and his friends.
Thank you all so much for your time today and congratulations to the graduates & their families.
