No matter how hard they tried, Gilroy High School’s Class of
2010 could not convince their principal to do his signature back
flip on-stage.
No matter how hard they tried, Gilroy High School’s Class of 2010 could not convince their principal to do his signature back flip on-stage.
“Back flip! Back flip!” the spirited group of graduates chanted during first-year Principal Marco Sanchez’s speech.
“C’mon, I can’t do a back flip in this robe,” Sanchez reasoned.
Evoking cheer after cheer from his graduating class, Sanchez kicked off the ceremony by paying homage to his seniors, singling out at least a dozen students by name for their accomplishments. After each student he congratulated, he listed their college of choice. From Gavilan to Yale, GHS graduates are going places, Sanchez said.
He recounted his first experience with a GHS student and the high bar that student set. After meeting George Washington University-bound Mark Foley at a school board meeting, “I thought to myself, ‘Wow, are all Gilroy High School students this great?'” Sanchez said. “‘Are they all personable, bright, motivated and responsible?’ As I got a chance to meet our seniors throughout the year, I was not disappointed, to say the least. Before us today, we have more than 500 personable, bright, motivated and responsible students who have earned their diploma.”
About halfway through Sanchez’s address, the microphone died.
“Your speech is too hot for the mike,” one student yelled.
Once the sound system was restored, Sanchez ran down the long list of the Class of 2010’s accomplishments. From the Pacemaker Award – the highest award a high school newspaper can receive – bestowed upon the Free Press to the accolades of the school’s stellar band and choir program, Gilroy High’s graduating class was a well rounded one.
“This is a class with character,” keynote speaker and English teacher Mark Rose said.
Weaving literary greats such as Steinbeck and Shakespeare into his speech, Rose congratulated the graduates for living deliberate lives rather than allowing themselves to fall “victims of fate.”
“Be masters of your fates and make your mommas proud,” he said, bidding the Class of 2010 a fond farewell.
Evident in every one of the speeches delivered was the students’ and faculty’s affection for each other. When it was the students’ turn to speak, they returned Sanchez’s and Rose’s praise. Instead of trying to put her own words on paper, Senior Class Vice President Ana Lopez solicited her fellow classmates to round out her speech, which recognized GHS’s faculty and staff.
“My eighth grade English teacher, Mrs. Mittman, once told me that our class would be impossible to forget, and I’ve heard the same thing from many of you guys as well,” Lopez said to the teachers – or “miracle workers,” as Sanchez called them – who wore long black gowns and exchanged high fives and hugs with their students as they took their seats. “But the truth is that all of you left a footprint some way or another in the lives of these students, and for that, we thank you.”
Under clear blue skies, 555 graduates marched across the stage to accept their diplomas. Angelica Senior danced her way across after accepting a last-minute lei from a family member who ran onto the field. Mandi Jo Torres padded barefoot across the stage. Daniel Apuzzo stopped to give his mother, school boardmember Denise Apuzzo, a bear hug. And Elise Ogle received an equally warm embrace from her father, Coach Chuck Ogle, who ran on stage for the moment.
Girls clutched their caps to their heads in the unusually windy weather that took down a banner behind the stage soon after strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” began to play. Extravagantly decorated caps made finding graduates easy from the packed bleachers.
“I’m just extremely proud of her and all the graduates,” said Chuck Ogle, one arm slung around his daughter, Elise, who will head to Stanford next year. “They’re starting their new life. The future is unknown, but for some of them, it’s going to be super bright.”
In his speech, Valedictorian Jonathan Lam urged his fellow students to embrace the unknown and make something of themselves.
“I do want to stress to you, even though it may sound cliche, to live out your dreams,” Lam said. “Because that’s what life is about. Live the life you should be living. Live your dreams, quickly, and make new ones, and live those out too. So Class of 2010, this is our time, our moment. It’s time to live it and take it all in.”
