JOPLIN, Mo. — President Barack Obama says the graduating seniors of a Missouri town devastated by deadly tornadoes are a "source of inspiration" to him and the nation.
Obama says the story of Joplin, Mo., is one of a community coming together in response to tragedy.
The president was speaking on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the tornado that killed 161 people. Joplin High School was destroyed and the students spent their senior year taking classes in a converted department store.
Obama says the graduating class can use it as a lesson that, in his words, "we can define our own lives not by what happens to us, but by how we respond."
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Obama says that in the town of 50,000 people, nearly 50,000 more came to help after the tornado.