Thank you so much.

Congratulations.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Everybody, please have a seat.

Well, hello, Watertown!

(applause)

It's good to be in South Dakota.

I want to thank Governor Daugaard and the First Lady.

Apparently, Michelle and her, they're on the same

wave length when it comes to keeping us straight.

(laughter)

To Senator Thune, Senator Rounds,

Congresswoman Noem, Mayor Thorson, Superintendent

Dr. Lesli Jutting -- all of you for your extraordinary

hospitality today.

I am thrilled to be here.

I have now been to all 50 states as President -- and I

was saving the best for last.

(applause)

To the other 49, I hope you take no offense.

(laughter)

I will say that your Tourism Secretary sent

me a very impressive letter listing all the South Dakota

sites that I still need to see.

(laughter)

And they looked great, but I decided that

the first one I needed to see was Lake Area Tech.

(applause)

So, President Cartney, thank you and the people

of Watertown for welcoming me.

To the students, the faculty, the staff, I'm

honored to be with you here today.

And most of all, congratulations to

the Class of 2015!

(applause)

I know some folks were a little surprised by me

coming here.

But there is no place I'd rather be on this Friday

afternoon than celebrating with all of you.

Although I was told I should head home before any of my

staff end up at the "gravel pit" tonight.

(laughter)

That's what I was told.

(applause)

I want to begin with a public service announcement.

As long as you keep your school ID, you can still get

your Sunday night student discount at B-Dubs.

(laughter)

I had my staff check on that.

And I think it may go down in history as one of my more

popular executive actions.

(laughter)

So after a whole lot of work, you have a whole lot

to celebrate this weekend.

This is a proud moment -- and not just for you,

wearing the funny hats, but for your friends and your

family, and your mentors, your instructors who helped

you to reach this day.

So let's give the family members and all the people

who helped get you here, let's give them a big round

of applause.

(applause)

And I actually spend a lot of time with a community

college professor whose name is Dr. Jill Biden.

She happens to be Joe Biden's wife.

She teaches English full-time at a community

college in Virginia.

So I know how great your instructors can be.

And I want to thank one of them in particular.

So Dolores Stemwedel was scheduled to speak today.

Where is she?

I saw her earlier.

There she is.

She graciously agreed to wait until next year so that

I could cut in.

(laughter)

And I had a chance to meet her.

She was completely charming.

And I have to say, you guys missed out.

She's really good.

Of course, Dolores was not the only one who was

surprised to learn that I had asked to speak at

your commencement.

When President Cartney told his staff the news,

apparently no one believed him.

(laughter)

And Shane Ortmeier, your bookstore manager,

said he blacked out for a minute.

(laughter)

Alexis Stinton, an instructor in your

Ag program, said her first thought was, "That's the

"funniest joke in the world.

"We're just a tiny little school, in this tiny

"litte town."

And look, she's right.

This is a small school in a small town, in a state that

is wonderful but not a huge population.

There are schools out there with more students than

this one.

There are schools with more resources and more history,

and more name recognition.

And, frankly, there are schools with stadiums that

could fit all of this county nearly four times over.

So the question is, why am I here?

Well, you started to hear the answer earlier from the

previous speakers.

Why would I come to a two-year college in the

fifth-biggest city in South Dakota?

Well, the reason is because I believe that in a

fast-paced, hyper-connected, constantly changing world,

there are few institutions that are more important to

America's economic future than community colleges.

And there are few community colleges that are as

important as Lake Area Tech.

This school is leading the way.

Compared with other community colleges, the

graduation rate at Lake Area is more than three times the

national average.

Three times.

(applause)

Within six months, 98 percent of those

graduates -- you -- are either employed or

continuing your education.

The average Lake Area graduate who enters the

workforce earns nearly 50 percent more than other new

hires in this region.

And as has already been noted, since 2011, there's

been an award for excellence called the "Aspen Prize."

It's basically the Oscars for great

community colleges.

Only two community colleges in the country made the top

10 every year the prize has been awarded -- and one of

them is Lake Area Tech.

(applause)

This is not an accident.

It's the result of a relentless focus on teaching

real-world skills that lead directly to a job.

In your time here, you've done hands-on work with

companies across the upper Midwest.

Employers even help design the curriculum.

You work direct with the tools and the technology

that you'll encounter in the workforce -- from car

engines to welding equipment to your new MakerSpace, with

3D printers that were actually built by Lake

Area students.

And your instructors haven't just taught you new skills

-- they've helped place you in new careers.

And you might think all this attention on job training

comes at the expense of great teaching -- but if

anything, the opposite is true.

This is the kind of place where students are on a

first-name basis with their instructors.

If you call at 10 p.m., they'll answer your call --

although I hope you don't do that, because folks need

their sleep.

If you don't make it to morning classes, they'll

check up on you and make sure you're okay.

I heard one student who skipped school to go hunting

found that out the hard way that somebody was going to

check up on you.

(laughter)

One of today's graduates, Colin Blume --

where's Colin?

Raise your hand.

(applause)

Stand up, Colin, just so you -- hey,

that's Colin.

Colin is a big guy, by the way.

So Colin -- I'm going to quote Colin on this.

He said, "You're family, and they'll do anything to help

you along the way."

And that sense of mission has been part of Lake Area

since this school was founded 50 years ago.

And today it matters even more -- that sense that

we're a family, and that we'll do anything to help

each other along the way.

Class of 2015, you're about to graduate into an economy

that is fundamentally different than the one that

faced the first class of Lake Area graduates over a

half-century ago.

You've seen a lot of the perils of this economy

firsthand -- how good jobs and entire industries can

vanish or be shipped overseas.

How a crisis, because of some of irresponsible folks

on Wall Street, can punish families on Main Street with

one of the most vicious recessions in our

country's history.

So it would be easy to just throw up your hands and say,

"What hope does a place like Watertown have in a

global economy?

What place does somebody like me have in today's

job market?"

But instead of looking backwards, you

looked forward.

You saw doors of opportunity waiting to be opened.

You decided that community college would be your key to

unlocking those doors.

Some of you came to Lake Area because you knew

exactly what you wanted to do with your lives, and you

saw that education could earn your way to get started

as quickly as possible.

And Colin -- the young man who said this school was

like a family -- turned a high school welding project

into a business when he was 16 years old.

At 18, he was awarded a patent for creating a new

type of grain-handling cage.

And today, at the ripe old age of 20, he's graduating

with a degree in Ag production, and a new

contract to manufacture continuous fencing in the

shop on his family farm.

And who knows how many jobs he's going to end

up creating.

That's the kind of future-oriented focus that

we're seeing in today's graduates.

And the instructors here help to make it happen.

(applause)

So we're really proud of you.

But Colin is not the only.

From the time she was an infant, Maysa Hackens has

been blind in her right eye, and she has only 75 percent

vision in her left.

Is she here?

Maysa?

Come on, stand up.

There you go.

(applause)

There you go.

So Maysa is not as tall as Colin.

(laughter)

But in high school, she discovered a

passion that most people might not expect somebody

with her vision issues to be able to pursue photography.

And she was really good at it.

And she found that Lake Area would give her the chance to

complete both a business degree and a photography

degree in just two years.

So now she's going back home, to New Underwood, to

run her own business.

It's called "How 'Eye' See It Photography."

And she's got a website, and she's got a business plan.

(applause)

That's the kind of initiative that built

this country.

And a little free advertising from the

President doesn't help -- it doesn't hurt.

(laughter)

Hopefully, folks were paying attention.

So community colleges like this one can be a great

place for young people to launch a career.

But they're also a great place for people who have

already been in the workforce for a while, and

decide they need to change their careers and reach for

something better.

So Leanna Waldner -- where's Leanna?

Come on, don't be shy.

She's here somewhere.

There she is.

(applause)

Wow.

Leanna, you stood up and sat down before I could even

see you.

(laughter)