Boehner speaks to record class of Ohio State grads

Speaker of the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive John A. Boehner from Ohio’s 8th Con­gres­sional Dis­trict, left, pose for a photo with E. Gor­don Gee, Ohio State Uni­ver­sity pres­i­dent, before address­ing stu­dents at The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity dur­ing com­mence­ment exer­cises Sun­day in the Ohio Sta­dium, in Colum­bus. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Terry Gilliam)

JULIE CARR SMYTH

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — U.S. House Speaker John Boehner poked brief fun at one scan­dal on Sun­day and Ohio State University’s pres­i­dent sought to ele­vate his insti­tu­tion above another dur­ing the university’s largest ever grad­u­a­tion ceremony.

Boehner, a Cincin­nati Repub­li­can, pep­pered his 8-minute speech to a record 9,700 grad­u­ates and about 40,000 rel­a­tives and friends with emo­tion, advice and a joke about the name of a col­league involved in a scan­dal over lewd photos.

Say­ing his own name was often mis­pro­nounced — some­times rhyming with the words “honor” and “leaner,” some­times even being called “boner” — Boehner (pro­nounced BAY’-nur) said, “Thank God it’s not Weiner.” Fel­low U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, a New York Demo­c­rat, admit­ted last week to sex­u­ally explicit com­mu­ni­ca­tions with as many as six women via social net­work­ing sites such as Face­book and Twitter.

Grad­u­ates assem­bled under clear blue skies. Many sported shorts and flip-flops under their black robes, and some wore mor­tar­boards decked out with scar­let and gray O’s, sequins, gift-wrap bows, feath­ers or pipe-cleaner cre­ations. Stu­dents held bal­loons or flags to iden­tify them­selves, or scanned the crowd — cell­phones to their ears — look­ing for loved ones.

Boehner told grad­u­ates that it is impor­tant to work hard, per­se­vere and be humble.

“You know, life isn’t always about you,” he said. “I’m a big believer that every­thing in life is a two-way street, and being use­ful to oth­ers, being involved in your com­mu­nity, find­ing some way to serve is part as what I would describe as humility.”

With emo­tion in his voice, Boehner recalled his bar­tender father work­ing 10 or 12 hours a day yet still find­ing time to volunteer.

“So before you think about what you want to do in your life, I would sug­gest to all of you: Think about who you want to be before you think about what you want to be,” he said.

The uni­ver­sity pre­sented Boehner with an hon­orary doc­tor­ate in pub­lic service.

Dur­ing his remarks, Ohio State Uni­ver­sity Pres­i­dent E. Gor­don Gee acknowl­edged the commencement’s loca­tion at Ohio Sta­dium, home to the university’s cel­e­brated and now scandal-scarred foot­ball program.

“Let me acknowl­edge on this day of cel­e­bra­tion, in this cathe­dral of tri­umph and hope, that many Buck­eye hearts are heavy,” Gee said. “On rare occa­sion, this great, grand build­ing has been home to dis­ap­point­ment and tumult. That is but a tem­po­rary condition.”

Gee assured tens of thou­sands of alumni and sup­port­ers of the uni­ver­sity, as well as its new grad­u­ates, that things will improve.

The uni­ver­sity is grap­pling with the depar­ture of foot­ball coach Jim Tres­sel and star quar­ter­back Ter­relle Pryor amid an NCAA inves­ti­ga­tion into play­ers’ trad­ing of signed equip­ment, cham­pi­onship rings and other mem­o­ra­bilia to a tattoo-parlor owner for cash and dis­counted tattoos.

Evok­ing the mem­o­ries of great Ohio State ath­letes of the past, football’s Archie Grif­fin and track Olympian Jesse Owens, Gee said: “Let no one har­bor any doubt that the his­tory of this place is endur­ing and sus­tain­ing. Ohio Sta­dium stands today as it will ever more.”

The crowd roared and tooted horns.

Aside from his Weiner remark, Boehner steered clear of Wash­ing­ton pol­i­tics in his speech, despite being locked in a near-daily spar­ring match with Demo­c­ra­tic Pres­i­dent Barack Obama over fed­eral bud­get pri­or­i­ties and the size of the national debt.

A group of stu­dents and local activists protested Boehner’s appear­ance ahead of the event, say­ing Repub­li­can bud­get pro­pos­als in Wash­ing­ton cut taxes to the wealthy while cut­ting money for schools, health care and clean energy.

Posted by AP News on Jun 12 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.