Michelle Obama's farewell speech: 'I hope I've made you proud'
Read below Michelle Obama's speech especially to the youngsters of USA…
Hello, everyone. And, may I say for the last time officially, welcome to the White House. Yes! (Applause.) Well, we are beyond thrilled to have you all here to celebrate the 2017 National School Counselor of the Year, as well as all of our State Counselors of the Year. These are the fine women, and a few good men—(laughter)—one good man—who are on this stage, and they represent schools from across this country.
And I want to start by thanking Terri for that wonderful introduction and her right-on-the-spot remarks. I'm going to say a lot more about Terri in a few minutes, but first I want to take a moment to acknowledge a few people who are here.
First, our outstanding Secretary of Education, John King. (Applause.) As well as our former Education Secretary, Arne Duncan. (Applause.) I want to take this time to thank you both publicly for your dedication and leadership and friendship. We couldn't do this without the support of the Department of Education under both of your leadership. So I'm grateful to you personally, and very proud of all that you've done for this country.
I also want to acknowledge a few other special guests we have in the audience. We've got a pretty awesome crew. As one of my staff said, "You roll pretty deep." (Laughter.) I'm like, well, yeah, we have a few good friends. We have with us today Ted Allen, La La Anthony, Connie Britton, Andy Cohen—yeah, Andy Cohen is here—(laughter)—Carla Hall, Coach Jim Harbaugh and his beautiful wife, who's a lot better looking than him—(laughter)—Lana Parrilla, my buddy Jay Pharoah, Kelly Rowland, Usher—
Keep it down. (Laughter.) Keep it together, ladies. Wale is here. And of course, Allison Williams and her mom are here.
And all these folks are here because they're using their star power to inspire our young people. And I'm so grateful to all of you for stepping up in so many ways on so many occasions. I feel like I've pestered you over these years, asking time and time again, "Well, where are you going to be?" "I'm going to be in New York." "Can you come? Can you come here? Can you do this? Can you take that? Can you ask for that? Can you come? Can we rap? Can we sing?" (Laughter.) So thank you all so much. It really means the world to this initiative to have such powerful, respected and admired individuals speaking on behalf of this issue. So congratulations on the work that you've done, and we're going to keep working.
And today, I especially want to recognize all these—extraordinary leadership team that was behind Reach Higher from day one. And this isn't on the script so they don't know this. I want to take time to personally acknowledge a couple of people. Executive Director Eric Waldo. (Applause.) Where is Eric? He's in the—you've got to step out. (Applause.) Eric is acting like he's a ham, but he likes the spotlight. (Laughter.) He's acting a little shy.
I want to recognize our Deputy Director, Stephanie Sprow. Stephanie. (Applause.) And he's really not going to like this because he tries to pretend like he doesn't exist at all, but our Senior Advisor, Greg Darnieder. (Applause.) There you go. Greg has been a leader in education his entire life. I've known him since I was a little organizer person. And it's just been just a joy to work with you all. These individuals, they are brilliant. They are creative. They have worked miracles with hardly any staff or budget to speak of—which is how we roll in the First Lady's Office. (Laughter.) And I am so proud and so, so grateful to you all for everything that you've done. So let's give them a round of applause. (Applause.)
Watch Michelle Obama's entire final speech below...
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