HB,
Your UGA commencement address was absolutely masterful, captivating and perhaps the best “life’s wisdom through experience and candid advise” given to college graduates. My initial reaction as I watched you march into the arena with President Morehead and other dignitaries was “where are his notes?” Then I thought maybe you had your cellphone and would give your message from your cellphone. But your message was delivered from factual campus memories 61-years ago, thus you didn’t need notes to enlighten the audience on differences between UGA then and UGA now. And your message to the graduates about the three types of people in the world today, and your challenge to all graduates to move from the 90 percent category to the 8 percent category was classic Harold A. Black, world renowned pragmatist and esteemed Economist! With your permission I would like to use this challenge with the group of Austin-East High School juniors Beta Theta Boule’ is working with this school year. I certainly hope UGA administration challenges other higher education institutions to compare your commencement address with others commencement messages and yours has to rank as one of the best ever. Finally, I can envision that your mother and father were spiritually present on December 15th and looked down on you and said, “well done my son, well done!”
Dennis, Thank you for your kind words. I wanted to convey two things. First, I was not a victim although some have tried to label us as such. My parents taught us that victimhood was an excuse for failure. I embraced that and relished the challenges that I faced almost daily my freshman year, culminating in my induction into the honors program. Second, I wanted to caution against intellectual laziness which prevails smong our youth despite the abundance of data. If I made those two points effectively then I succeeded. Again thank you.
haroldblackphd.com 
HB,
Your UGA commencement address was absolutely masterful, captivating and perhaps the best “life’s wisdom through experience and candid advise” given to college graduates. My initial reaction as I watched you march into the arena with President Morehead and other dignitaries was “where are his notes?” Then I thought maybe you had your cellphone and would give your message from your cellphone. But your message was delivered from factual campus memories 61-years ago, thus you didn’t need notes to enlighten the audience on differences between UGA then and UGA now. And your message to the graduates about the three types of people in the world today, and your challenge to all graduates to move from the 90 percent category to the 8 percent category was classic Harold A. Black, world renowned pragmatist and esteemed Economist! With your permission I would like to use this challenge with the group of Austin-East High School juniors Beta Theta Boule’ is working with this school year. I certainly hope UGA administration challenges other higher education institutions to compare your commencement address with others commencement messages and yours has to rank as one of the best ever. Finally, I can envision that your mother and father were spiritually present on December 15th and looked down on you and said, “well done my son, well done!”
Dennis
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Dennis, Thank you for your kind words. I wanted to convey two things. First, I was not a victim although some have tried to label us as such. My parents taught us that victimhood was an excuse for failure. I embraced that and relished the challenges that I faced almost daily my freshman year, culminating in my induction into the honors program. Second, I wanted to caution against intellectual laziness which prevails smong our youth despite the abundance of data. If I made those two points effectively then I succeeded. Again thank you.
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