Dear Miss Future.
I write with deference and hope to introduce myself
and the rather large community of which I am immensely
fortunate to be a part of.
We are all eagerly looking forward
to meeting you in person.
In the meantime, I thought you might be interested
knowing a bit about us, who we were, who we are,
and who we hope to become by the time we meet.
We are explorers of everything from galaxies to microbiomes.
We are caregivers.
We are discoverers.
We are adventurers.
We are champions.
We are thinkers.
We are doers.
We are artists, athletes, and musicians.
We are leaders.
We are writers.
We are officers.
We are streakers.
[LAUGHTER]
We are funny.
We are curious.
We are fierce, and we are friendly.
We are skeptical.
[LAUGHTER]
We are Jefferson, Echols, Roads, Marshall,
and Fulbright scholars.
We are singing groups.
We have famous dropouts.
[LAUGHTER]
We are Greek life.
We are secret societies, one of whom just pledged $1 million
to support student health and the library.
To protect its secrecy, I will identify the society only
by an initial.
[LAUGHTER]
We are the Blue Ridge Mountains and Bodo's Bagels.
We are Madison House and Mad Bowl.
We have been to outer space, and we have been to Antarctica.
We have scaled mountains, and we have
explored the depths of the sea.
We are resilient.
We are path breakers.
We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.
We are Cavaliers.
We are, in a word, Miss Future, Wahoos.