YouTube 
 
 The commencement speech arms race is no joke this year. It takes something pretty special to grab attention during a season when one valedictorian got a nationally televised do-over after his school banned him from coming out in his address, and everyone from President Obama to Matthew McConaughey, Bill Nye, Ed Helms and Stephen Colbert have been lighting up stages. 
 
 So, Colin Yost knew he needed to up his game. The valedictorian at Portsmouth High School in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, pulled off one for the ages on Friday, when he ended his inspirational speech by saying, "all you have to do it shake it off." 
 
 He then stepped back and began shaking it as Taylor Swift's hit came on over the gym's loudspeakers. 
 
 "I've always wanted to do a flash mob and I thought graduation would be the perfect place because our class is very cohesive and doesn't really have a lot of cliques," Yost told MTV News on Monday morning, while taking a break from his job as an assistant in a cardiovascular operating room at a Portsmouth hospital. 
 
 "I was listening to 'Shake It Off' in the car and I thought that would be great for a flash mob so I talked to a few of my friends about making it happen." One friend, a stage manager, handled the music, while two others with dance experience helped choreograph the whole thing. 
 
 They put together an instructional video for the class that they shared privately on YouTube and then got the administration on board, who said they were fine with the plan as long as Yost and his 230+ classmates could actually pull it off. They even let the seniors use five scheduled graduation rehearsals to get the routine right. 
 
 "As we practiced, the energy was just building and everyone was feeling how great it was to work together and send this positive message," Yost said. 
 
 Following his funny, touching speech about embracing your inner nerd and striving for perfection in anything you're passionate about, Yost started the dance alone, which was (purposely) awkward. "My parents and a lot of other parents didn't know, so at the end of my speech half were laughing and some where like, 'oh gosh, what is he doing?'" 
 
 But then, little by little, the front row joined in, then another row and the looks of confusion and fear turned into laughter and tears from the families as pretty soon the routine turned the class of '15 into an undulating sea of maroon and white caps and gowns. 
 
 Yost, who wants to be a heart surgeon, is headed to Princeton in the fall, where he plans to major in chemical and biological engineering. 
 
 And, in case you were wondering. "No, I've never taken dance lessons." ||||| PORTSMOUTH — Graduation ceremonies, no matter how important, are often drawn-out affairs with little to break the ceremonial monotony. 
 
 A few friends at Portsmouth High School decided to change that. 
 
 Spearheaded by valedictorian Colin Yost, the class of roughly 235 students successfully performed a flash mob to Taylor Swift’s pop tune “Shake It Off,” shocking the audience and eventually going viral once MTV came calling. 
 
 The video had been viewed on YouTube more than 270,000 times by Tuesday afternoon. Yost and others couldn’t have been happier with how it turned out — and the national attention it is receiving. 
 
 “I never thought it would have gone that well,” said Brooke Matthews, who helped organize the flash mob with Yost and fellow seniors Georgina Head and Lauren Gagne. “We’re so proud at how well everyone came together.” 
 
 Yost cited the cohesiveness of the class and approval of the administration to rehearse the dance routine for its success. Five marching practices were used to get the timing and movements correct. 
 
 “About three weeks before graduation, I woke up at 3 a.m. to a text from Colin asking me to help with choreography for a graduation flash mob,” Head said, adding she started watching the Swift music video and mapping out a dance routine. 
 
 There was difficulty crafting a suitable routine, as all the graduates were sitting. The students decided that having different sections jump in would help with the display. 
 
 “We played around with some moves,” Head said. “We knew the front row was the class council, so we could get up and move around.” 
 
 The other important detail was hitting the music cue, which was where the administration finally came into play. 
 
 “We hadn’t planned on telling administration,” Yost said. 
 
 But as each senior would be on the auditorium floor, someone was needed to start the song. 
 
 “At first they were against it,” said Gagne. “But we told them to listen to us and we showed them our plan.” 
 
 The students presented detailed outlines of the entire performance to the administration, complete with white board diagrams and a sneak peek at the dance by Yost himself. 
 
 As Yost finished his speech — the ending words were “All you have to do, is shake it off” — he broke out into dance as looks of shock and surprise come over faces in the audience. “It was such a great moment ending the speech, hearing the music play and then dancing awkwardly,” Yost said. 
 
 While the moment was meant to be light-hearted and fun, Yost said the song and dance routine summed up exactly what he was talking about in his valedictory address: To embrace your inner nerd. 
 
 “The goal was to basically try to go viral and send a positive message, not about Portsmouth High School and the Class of 2015, but life in general,” said Yost, who will attend Princeton University this fall. “My speech leading up to the flash mob is about embracing your inner nerd and being proud of who you are. The song aligns with that.” 
 
 Yost and the other students didn’t expect much hoopla in the aftermath, but they did start to notice when Facebook videos of the event from a teacher and parent started to creep into the tens of thousands of views. 
 
 “After just a couple nights, two Facebook videos had more than 10,000 views separately, so that was shocking.” 
 
 Yost said the videos spread around a little bit more before he received an email from a writer for MTV.com asking to talk to him about the flash mob. 
 
 “I was thrilled and shocked,” Yost said. “I called them, talked for a few minutes and once that article was posted, it exploded.” 
 
 article became the top-trending story on Thebecame the top-trending story on MTV.com later Monday evening, and has been shared across Facebook more than 50,000 times. 
 
 Yost, who works as an assistant support personnel in the cardiovascular operating room at Portsmouth Regional Hospital, said it’s a memory that will stay with him forever. ||||| Marvin Wright's high school diploma was withheld on June 9 after he refused to read a speech written by the school's administrators. (Amber Ferguson/The Washington Post) 
 
 Marvin Wright, president of his high school senior class, spent two weeks working on his graduation speech, staying up till 5 on the morning of the event to finish. 
 
 But later that day, the principal of Southwest Edgecombe High in Pinetops, N.C., told him he would be giving a different address, a five-sentence paragraph prepared by the school administrators. He gave him no explanation. 
 
 “I felt robbed of a chance to say my own words,” Marvin, 18, told The Washington Post. His mother, classmates and teachers urged him to give his speech anyway. 
 
 When he stepped onto the stage at the end of the commencement ceremony Friday, he opened up a folder under the podium containing the school’s prepared remarks: 
 
 I would like to thank all of our friends and family for being here tonight. I would also like to address my fellow graduates one last time before we leave this gym. Although we may all never be in the same room at the same time again, we will always share the memories that we created within these walls. And no matter what we all do after graduation, never forget that this is one place that we all have in common, this place is home. Congratulations graduates, we did it! 
 
 But instead of delivering those words, he took out his cellphone and read a copy of his original speech, with his friends in the audience nodding to him in encouragement. 
 
 Sitting behind Marvin, the principal, Craig Harris, immediately turned to another staff member, whispering with a look of disapproval, video footage shows. 
 
 After the applause and final procession, all of the students lined up to receive their official diplomas. But one folder in the stack was missing: Marvin’s. His senior adviser informed him the principal had removed the diploma because Marvin had read the wrong speech. 
 
 “All my friends were outside with their big yellow folders taking pictures and I was still inside, trying to get my diploma,” Marvin said. “I was really hurt and embarrassed, basically humiliated.” 
 
 The teenager and his mother, Jokita Wright, accused the school of not only censoring a student’s words but then retaliating against him by withholding his diploma. The mother complained to the principal, who explained to her that her son had missed a deadline to submit the speech to the school. Marvin says he never knew about it. 
 
 Marvin did not receive his diploma for another two days, when the principal dropped it off at his home at the request of the superintendent. The principal handed him the diploma, saying only, “If your mom has any questions just give me a call.” Then he left. 
 
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 Edgecombe County Schools Superintendent John Farrelly called Marvin on Monday to apologize for the way the school handled the situation on commencement day. 
 
 “I have communicated with the family to apologize on behalf of the school,” Farrelly said in a statement to the Wilson Times. “The diploma never should have been taken from the student.” 
 
 Farrelly said he did not have any problems with the content of the teenager’s speech but was concerned about Marvin’s use of a cellphone and the decision to change course at the last minute. 
 
 “There is an expectation that is communicated to all graduation speakers that the prepared and practiced speech is the speech to be delivered during the ceremony,” Farrelly said. “That was made extremely clear to the speakers. The student did not follow those expectations.” 
 
 In the fall, when Marvin was elected senior class president, his adviser informed him he would have to write a graduation speech. He says he wasn’t given any guidance, so he sought out tips from the previous year’s senior class president, and listened to numerous commencement speeches online for ideas. 
 
 His English teacher told him she approved of the speech. Marvin even left a copy of the remarks on his principal’s desk for review on commencement day. 
 
 Still, administrators insisted he should read the address they prepared. 
 
 But Marvin gave the speech he wanted to give, recounting memories he shared with his classmates through elementary, middle and high school. Though he stumbled a few times — distracted by the conversations taking place behind him and struggling to read from his phone — Marvin’s speech was welcomed with cheers and laughs from the audience. 
 
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 In his approximately five-minute address, he thanked God, the family members of the graduates, the school’s faculty and his mom — who was watching in the bleachers in tears. 
 
 “This is it,” Marvin said. “We have finally made it.” 
 
 He talked about playing at recess in elementary school, dealing with the “transition period” of middle school, when “things didn’t work out in our favor.” 
 
 Finally, he talked about his senior year. 
 
 “Everything seemed different,” he said. “Teachers became mentors, friends became family, and Southwest Edgecombe High became home.” 
 
 “I am no expert in this journey we call life, but we all have the ability to make a difference and to be that change the world needs,” Wright continued. “The past 13 years have equipped us for a time as this to stand bold in who we are. So I say to my classmates, cherish these last few minutes we spend here and the memories we have created and get ready for the journey ahead.” 
 
 Marvin was his mother’s last child to graduate high school. His relatives drove to watch him speak and receive his diploma. While she’s glad he gave an address in his own words, Jokita Wright wished her son could have left the school that day with the diploma he rightfully earned, she said. 
 
 “He can’t get that day back,” his mother said. “That was a special moment for me, it was a special moment for him.” 
 
 Luckily, Marvin received the diploma just in time for the day he needed it most. On Monday, he officially committed to entering the U.S. Navy, after which he hopes to study pediatric surgery. 
 
 The high school graduate will report for duty on Oct. 10.
– Parents who thought they were going to have to sit through a boring graduation in a stuffy gym got anything but at Portsmouth High School on Friday. Colin Yost, the valedictorian for the New Hampshire school's senior class, decided he wanted to shake things up—and off—during his commencement speech, so after his words of inspiration, he stepped out from behind the podium and started dancing, by himself, to Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off," eliciting laughter and some "oh gosh, what is he doing?" reactions, MTV reports. Soon, however, his intentions were made clear as the rest of his graduating class (more than 230 in all) stood up and joined Colin in a choreographed celebration of the end of their high school career. While Colin's flash mob surprised the audience, it was far from spontaneous. The senior posted a video tutorial on YouTube for his classmates to study and cajoled the school's administration beforehand into letting him use five graduation rehearsals to get the moves down just right, MTV notes. "As we practiced, the energy was just building and everyone was feeling how great it was to work together and send this positive message," he tells the station. He adds that the song-and-dance show played perfectly into what he had talked about in his speech on embracing your inner nerd, the Portsmouth Herald notes. But despite the Taylor-made two-stepping's success, we probably won't be seeing Colin—who admits he's never taken a dance lesson—on So You Think You Can Dance: He's headed to Princeton to study chemical and biological engineering, per MTV. (Hopefully no one got arrested for cheering.)