Every high school student who has the opportunity to give a graduation speech wants to leave their mark and give their classmates words they will remember for years to come. Well, Ben Bowling certainly made sure his speech was memorable in a unique way.
According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, the 18-year-old decided to troll the crowd at his Pineville, Kentucky, high school as he delivered his valedictorian speech.
Wanting to excite and inspire the crowd, Bowling inserted a quote he attributed to Donald Trump into his speech.
"This is the part of my speech where I share some inspirational quotes I found on Google," Bowling said during the ceremony at Pineville's Bell County High School. "'Don't just get involved. Fight for your seat at the table. Better yet, fight for a seat at the head of the table.' – Donald J. Trump."
The crowd burst into cheers and applause. However, Bowling cut them off adding, "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. That was Barack Obama."
OOP.
The crowd suddenly went silent. Then a few boos rang out.
What was Bowling's reason behind the switcheroo? Did he want to comment on our fake news culture? Or how Melania stays copying forever FLOTUS Michelle Obama?
Neither actually.
“I just thought it was a really good quote,” Bowling said. “Most people wouldn’t like it if I used it, so I thought I’d use Donald Trump’s name. It is southeastern Kentucky after all.”
Bowling's statement is reflected in the numbers, as 80 percent of Bell County's residents voted for Trump during the 2016 presidential election.
Kentucky law student Alisha Russell live-tweeted the speech.
"Y'all, no lie — the valedictorian just quoted Trump and everyone cheered … then he told us that it was actually an Obama quote. Best part of the day. I'm rolling."
"There was a portion of the crowd that thought it was absolutely hilarious," Russell continued. "But there was definitely some collective groaning too."
At the time of this posting, Russell has locked her social media accounts as private.
Since Bowling is now a graduation speech vet, he has one bit of advice for future speechmakers.
"Try not to be too nervous about it,” said Bowling. “For the most part, if you’ve been successful up to this point, there’s nothing to worry.”
Bowling plans to study biology at the University of Kentucky. We think he could teach a professional trolling class, too.