Click here to link to the Horry County Crime Report Hall of Shame. This is a special update not quite criminal in nature, but does feature a bad boy in South Carolina.

Class Salutatorian Urges Seniors Not to End up in a Van Down By the River, Gets Yanked off Stage Without Diploma

Conway High School, Class of 2002, salutatorian Chris Martin gave his commencement speech while doing his impression of motivational speaker, Matt Foley, (the Chris Farley character from SNL) Not impressed, the administration "escorted" cap and gown wearing Chris off the solemn stage and didn't give him his diploma for a week. (Perhaps that's how long it took his folks to find a nice lawyer, oops, his dad IS a lawyer.)

This kid needs an agent! I would love to see this. I know it had to be videotaped, perhaps by hundreds. Since Chris was one of 8 speakers, he undoubtably stole the show.

Surely escorting him off the stage was more disruptive than a tap on the shoulder and a whispered "enough". What drove the principal to such extreme action? Was he outraged at the loss of control? Did he live by the river and eat government cheese?

Conway is surrounded by rivers and waterways. Speaking from experience, one can have fun down there by the river. And many people do indeed live down there, by the river. Though of late, most riverfront homes are lovely and quite exspensive. Though located in one of the most prosperous counties in SC, government cheese is something that just happens to good people in bad times.

Kudos to Chris for having the guts to be himself and liven up a rather boring event. Just when rosy nostalgia was blurring the harsh edges of my high school memories I'm reminded just how open minded some people aren't.

If you promise to not be a cut up, click here to view the Conway High website. What follows was taken from the Sun News website, they don't archive their site reliably, so this link may or not work.

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Posted on Tue, Jun. 04, 2002
Yanked speaker receives diploma
By Mary-Kathryn Craft
The Sun News

Conway High School salutatorian Chris Martin received his diploma Monday, more than a week after he was escorted from the graduation stage for delivering his speech as a Saturday Night Live character.
Martin, 17, said he talked with school administrators about why his speech was interrupted and then got his diploma.
He said walking across the stage would have been better, but the wait didn't bother him.
"I knew I would get my diploma in the end," he said.
He said he was more upset for his parents, and his grandparents, who traveled from Delaware and Atlanta to see the ceremony on May 24.
Conway Principal Rick Maxey said he interrupted Martin's speech because he thought some of the remarks offended members of the audience.
Martin mentioned people having to live off government cheese in his speech.
"This was not the time or place for this type of presentation," Maxey said.
Martin, who is known among his friends and peers for doing dead-on impersonations of "Saturday Night Live" characters, delivered his address as motivational speaker Matt Foley, who was played by the late Chris Farley. Many audience members, including students and adults, said Martin was funny.
Martin said he wanted to reach his classmates with the speech.
"I was doing just like they taught me in public speaking - target your audience and do something for those people," he said. "I targeted the senior class, most of whom had heard the Chris Farley impersonation before."
Martin said he was told to give an inspirational speech. He turned in a poem the day before graduation. The night before graduation he worked for three hours revising the Farley routine so it would be suitable for graduation, he said. Even as he walked to the podium Martin wasn't sure what he would say.
"We had to listen to eight speeches that night," he said. "I figured one of them might as well be entertaining, as well as inspirational."
Martin talked with his parents about doing the routine at graduation, said Blake Martin, Chris Martin's father.
It was frustrating not getting to watch his son walk across the stage on graduation night, Blake Martin said. But the family is moving ahead.
"You can't raise children these days for 17 or 18 years and not have some bumps, no matter how good they are," Blake Martin said.
"We accept the bad and the good."
Chris Martin will attend the University of South Carolina Honors College in the fall. This summer, he is working part time at the Chestnut Hill restaurant in Myrtle Beach. He is a member of First Methodist Church in Conway and plays guitar there and at several other area churches.
"He is a strong Christian young man. That is probably what makes his mom and I most proud," Blake Martin said.