I thank you [Commission Chairman and Iowa State Senator Mary Kramer] and your fellow commissioners for so ably overseeing this process. As you said, it all began with thousands of applications, and it ended with this incredibly gifted group of 137 young people.

I also want to thank the parents here today. You did a great job. What your young people have accomplished is truly extraordinary. We’re probably looking at some future Senator or some Cabinet Secretary or even some President of the United States in this room.

I know I had at least one young woman tell me she had her eyes set on Colin Powell’s job. I’m going to tell him about that, also.

Your sons and daughters are among the best and brightest, and for that they can thank you, their moms, and dads, and loved ones. They can thank you for your love and your support and all of the money that used to be in your wallets.

Parents, you have earned this honor as well. So scholars will you join me and give the parents a big round of applause?

Some others who deserve our special thanks were honored last night. All of the teachers who nursed this creativity and brilliance. Mrs. Bush and I agreed afterwards, that it was one of those evenings when you come away absolutely inspired and renewed.

It is clear that you love what you do, teachers. You also know that teaching won’t make you rich. I know, I grew up with two parents who were educators, and I followed in their shoes.

But America’s teachers help make all of us, as a society, rich. It is, in my mind, the noblest profession, and I know the President is grateful to you. He oftentimes says, and I agree, that the saddest words we hear are, “You know, I used to be a teacher.” He wanted to be here today, but unfortunately his schedulers had other ideas. So he asked me to come in his place and pass along the warmest congratulations to this year’s scholars.

And in preparation, I did a little reading up on you scholars, and in case it hasn’t sunk in yet, you are pretty amazing. Just to give you some sense of what I mean think about this: In the 39 years since another President from Texas, Lyndon Johnson, began this program, America’s high schools have turned out more than 109 million graduates, but only 4,000 Presidential Scholars.

I took the calculation a little farther. For example, get this, odds are nine times greater that you’ll get struck by lightning than that you’ll be here picking up a Presidential Medallion. That makes you special. This is a crowd that’s going places. You actually know a fractal loop from a Fruit Loop. Maybe later someone will help explain fractals to the rest of us mere mortals. You’ve debated since you crawled out of the crib. You’ve read countless books. You blew the lid off the college boards. And if you’re like one of your colleagues from Little Rock, you spent your summers doing things like investigating the chemical stability of pigment yellow 74. For the mere mortals among us, apparently that’s a popular color for tattoos.

You’re poets, you’re math whizzes, you’re bull riders and film buffs. One of you was named after the ’60s movie star Doris Day. One of you hoped to grow up to be a horse-let me repeat-a horse. One of you dreamed of, and I quote, “Conversing with Prince Charming in six different languages.” Young men, you should be trying to figure out who that is, if you’re so smart. One of you in the group was hailed at birth as a reincarnation of your South American grandfather. So you wrote an essay entitled, “Life as an 80-year-old Peruvian man has been very interesting, to say the least.”

Each and every one of you is enormously talented. And when you aren’t recruiting, researching, and developing temperature-resistant sphingolipids, you spent your time giving back, lifting up and helping others. So I planned to come here today to urge you to give, to use the many gifts God gave you to serve a greater cause than yourself, to make your communities a better place to live.

But I see that many of you are already doing that. You are already teaching children and adults to read. Some of you are building homes for Habitat for Humanity. Others are volunteering in nursing homes, conserving the environment, working in soup kitchens and homeless shelters, mentoring youngsters. There are social entrepreneurs in this crowd as well. Some you saw a need around you and figured out a new way to answer that need.

So my message today is just continue to do what you’re doing, continue serving, not receiving. Continue giving, not getting. An important part of your life is making others feel important.

Success is more than just a personal accomplishment. It is about living a life of honor, and decency, and compassion for others. As Dr. Martin Luther King so famously reminded us some years ago, the time is always right to do right, and I hope some of you, for some of you, some of you that means taking your compassion and gifts and following in the footsteps of the great teachers you applauded last night. Our nation’s schools would be very, very blessed to have you.

Congratulations all, and God bless you and God bless America. Thank you.