Schools
Brecksville-Broadview Heights Graduating Senior Has Plan A and B
Tess Stevens leads a band, will learn to write leads about bands.
As one of the two Class Speakers at Saturday’s Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School commencement, Tess Stevens said she plans to use a theme of changes and evolutions.
“It’s a very conventional theme for a very unconventional speech. My speech not only addresses the popular kids and the kids that everyone knows about, but it talks about things that happen with kids that fall by the wayside or people who are forgotten. So I think it’s a really important message for everyone.”
It would be fair to say she leads a fairly unconventional life.
This summer she’ll be playing as many gigs as she can book with her band, Tess Stevens and the Thrills.
“Hopefully I will get an internship with that and after college move to New York to pursue music and writing.” That’s Plan A.
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Her five-member band is a pop-punk band in the vein of Green Day or Blink 182. She handles lead vocals and guitar. Sample some of the band’s songs at the website. Definitely some Green Day influence.
“I’m going to the Scripps School” of journalism at Ohio University, she said. She’s not too worried about OU’s long-held reputation as a party school. “I’m not much of a partier, so if that gets too ridiculous I’ll transfer,” she said with a laugh.
“I totally want to be a magazine writer,” she said. “I want to ideally write for a music magazine like Rolling Stone or something like that, if I’m not a musician myself.” There’s Plan B.
Stevens and fellow Class Speaker JoJo Jesser were selected by a commitee of faculty at Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School based on the speeches they submitted for consideration. It's a variation of traditional valedictorian and salutorian speeches of most class commencements.