It was a Kansas City homecoming Monday night for White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest.
He returned to his alma mater, the private Barstow School in south Kansas City, to deliver the commencement address to this year's graduating class.
"Barstow has instilled in you the confidence, the skills and the values not just to fortify Barstow, but to share with the world," Earnest said to the class of 2016, a group of about 60 people.
Earnest graduated from Barstow in 1993.
"It's fun to be back in a place that feels so familiar," Earnest told 41 Action News. "A place that was so critical to me in my childhood. So it's fun seeing a lot of old teachers walking through the hallways and some old coaches and it's really fun to be here."
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Before his speech, Earnest said his first commencement address would be unlike anything he's faced in the White House briefing room.
"I keep telling everybody around here that I'm nervous about it, and no one seems to believe me. I'm not sure why that is. Look, there are different kinds of pressure, and tonight I'll be confronting the pressure of talking about my own experience and my own insight as opposed to representing someone else's," said Earnest, who has served under President Barack Obama since 2009.
While Earnest may have been nervous, he did work some humor into his speech, telling the class not to spend an entire summer's worth of paychecks on a Drake concert.
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Justin Wilfon can be reached at justin.wilfon@kshb.com.
