A few months back, the story emerged about a Valedictorian who sued to be the only student with that title. She had excellent grades but was handicapped and was exempted from certain classes. The school considered bestowing the honor on her as well as two other students who also had excellent grades and who did participate in the classes the handicapped student did not. I believe that she did win her lawsuit, but it caused such a negative reaction that she ended up skipping her graduation ceremony.

It must be rough to be a Valedictorian these days. This entry at Number 2 Pencil describes a Valedictorian at a high school in Louisiana, who could not pass the Graduate Exit Exam (GEE) and thus will not graduate. I highly recommend clicking the link and reading the whole thing. (Thanks to The Volokh Conspiracy for the pointer.)

I attribute all my success to my not being named Valedictorian. There were actually seven of them in my graduating class (all 4.0 students), and now I'm curious how they are all doing. Not that it would be possible for me to figure that out...as I cannot remember who any of them were.