I was lucky in the lottery of life. My ticket gave me the parents I needed who have supported me throughout my life without sending me mixed signals about love and approval. What I mean is that they never withheld love when they disapproved. I gave them many opportunities to disapprove, but the love was steadfast. My parents also gave me the three sisters I needed, and my sisters got married and gave me the three brothers I needed. I have also been lucky with my own little family. Because I was raised well I want my marriage and my two daughters to be the great accomplishments of my life. I am lucky to know that nothing else matters more than that.

And I am here tonight because I had the great good fortune of going to San Marcos High School, where I was shaped by my beloved teacher, Virginia Witte.

Yes I worked hard. But I have been lucky.

Many are not so lucky. I encourage you to watch a new film, a documentary called Waiting for Superman. It’s about the crisis in public education that we face right now. This film is a heartbreaking challenge to all of us.

Right now there are too many children who make their way through terrifying neighborhoods only to get to a school where there is no heat, where buckets in their classrooms catch water falling from exposed pipes. Every child’s job is to become the best version of themselves, and these children are trying to do this under profoundly negative circumstances. Every signal they receive tells them they do not matter. Describing his experience going to such a school, one of the people in the film says, “I kept waiting for Superman to show up and save me.”

Our expectations in this society are too low, and the results are devastating. In this country you can get a welfare check or a government contract without having to be registered to vote or pay taxes. Without having to contribute or give back in any way. We appreciate it if you don’t pollute the environment to make a profit or stab us at the ATM machine. We will build more prisons and put you in time-out for a while, but it’s not likely that we will actually raise our expectations.

I was Virginia Witte’s student, so I think this is a problem.

At San Marcos High School, Superman showed up. Her name was Virginia Witte, and her expectations were not low. Just the opportunity to be hers was a clear signal about how much we mattered to this community. I was so hers, and she was mine. I knew that every day.

Her classroom was at the high school, but it was also in her living room or at her kitchen table or at Herbert’s Taco Hut. She was never finished with you.

I remember sitting in her living room once, and her husband Chet walked through while we were talking about Jack and Bobby. “Good lord, why don’t you talk about somebody who’s still alive? Why don’t you talk about somebody you can still vote for?” Of course she laughed. She laughed out of affection for Chet, for me, and for her own place in the world.

More than anyone I have ever known, Virginia Witte loved her place in the world. She worked it. Besides her own marriage and children, she worked at her students like we were to be her greatest accomplishments.

She worked with moral purpose. She always wanted to know about our successes, but she was never shy about letting us know when expectations were not being met. This she did by having one of her Okay, Darlin’ conversations. When she said, Okay, Darlin’, what it meant was, This is going to sting, but you need to hear it. I was still getting the Okay, Darlin’ treatment in my forties.

That’s because Virginia Witte never gave up on you. She knew that what she did mattered. She knew she was changing the world every day. Every day she showed up to save the world. Virginia Witte was Superman on steroids.

Tonight I do not believe she gives a hoot in heaven about how wealthy or powerful or famous we become. But she poured high expectations and endless attention into us, and because of it we are rich like kings and queens.

Because of Virginia Witte my life is rich. Two weeks ago we had a Nobel Peace Prize winner at our dinner table in Ellis, Kansas, and we fed him from our own garden. It was the kind of moment that could never have happened but for her in my life, because without her efforts I would never have made the choices in life to reach that moment. I thought about her that night. She was there.

The other great teaching mentor of my life was Wilson Carey McWilliams, my doctoral advisor at Rutgers University. After he died in 2005, I encountered something he wrote:

To estrange the past and the dead prevents us from truly learning the lesson of our own mortality. Mourning and remembering, we come closer to the truth, and in the sadness of the sense of loss, find joy in the discovery that other persons, alike but not identical to those we have lost, can be found.

We miss Bitsy. But she left her very best in so many of us.

Tonight, to the teachers and administrators at San Marcos High School, I challenge you to be alike but not identical to Virginia Witte. One day your work will end. One day your life will end. Leave the very best of yourselves in your students.

To the students of San Marcos High School, I challenge you to be alike but not identical to those who have occupied the desks before you. Leave your best in those classrooms, those hallways, those athletic fields. Remember how very lucky you are to receive the love of high expectations and all the signals that tell you how much we need you to show up, succeed and achieve.

Tonight I thank you for your kind attention and for your recognition of what I have tried to do to serve my country, what I have tried to do with the affection and high expectations you poured into me.

On behalf of all the students she shaped at San Marcos High School, I thank you for Virginia Witte. The example and memory of her in this community stands as a monument to help you remember that who you put into that classroom is the most important signal you will ever send to the students.

It is one of the great honors of my life to have been nominated by Virginia Witte for this recognition tonight.

But the greatest honor this community ever gave me is the honor you gave to so many students for decades, the honor of being shaped by Virginia Witte.

We didn’t have to wait for Superman to show up at San Marcos High School. Virginia Witte was waiting for us.

With all my heart I thank you for that.