PROVO -- Paul Cox had just one piece of advice for graduates in the Class of 1999. And it didn't have anything to do with wearing sunscreen.
"Dream big," said Cox to 20 graduates of Meridian High School Friday at the Provo Tabernacle.The Brigham Young University botany professor told the diploma recipients of the private, nondenominational school that dreaming precedes achieving -- and anything can be achieved with a dream.
Cox praised Meridian's commitment to academics since the school's founding in 1989.
"We've grown from 1 to 20 marvelous graduates," he said of the school's first decade. "This school works so well that if it were to shut down tomorrow . . . another group would start it right back up."
Cox told graduates the genesis of the school's mission, why parents discussed around a kitchen table the reasons they needed to build a "living critique" of the public school system for their children.
Those parents -- the school's "architects," as Cox calls them -- started a small school where children were taught in small groups, required to adhere to a dress code, had access to the latest technology and introduced to various cultures and religious dogmas.
"We found a warm family feeling that we found so lacking in the public school system, especially in the middle schools," he said.
Constance Lundberg, chairman of the school's trustee board, said that Meridian was not only celebrating its 10th graduating class but the successful struggle of the founding students and teachers to keep the school thriving.
Meridian's specialty, she said, is the emphasis on small classes, parental involvement and making sure the outgoing seniors are prepared to enter prestigious institutions of higher education.
Headmaster E. Kevin Clyde said the school's Latin motto means "there shall always be possibilities."
"It is a day of new beginnings; a day to look forward," he said.
Student body president Je-Heyeon Kim said he was grateful for the opportunity to attend Meridian. The Taiwan native honed his English skills at the east Provo school and prepared to attend college.