As students combed the synthetic grass of the Garcia-Elder
Sports Complex for flung mortarboards and stiff-armed their way
through throngs of camera flashes and family members, Gilroy High
School Principal Marco Sanchez smiled as he summed up his newest
graduates in three simple words.
”
Personality, energy and spirit,
”
Sanchez said.
”
I’ll miss them.
”
As students combed the synthetic grass of the Garcia-Elder Sports Complex for flung mortarboards and stiff-armed their way through throngs of camera flashes and family members, Gilroy High School Principal Marco Sanchez smiled as he summed up his 533 newest graduates in three simple words.
“Personality, energy and spirit,” Sanchez said. “I’ll miss them.”
The school’s 2011 graduation ceremonies certainly didn’t skimp on any of those three.
Pesky beachballs, fluttering bubbles, piercing airhorns and even a skateboarding teacher went hand-in-hand with the often-mentioned accomplishments of the new graduates, whose four-year hitch sent the school to unprecedented heights, Sanchez said.
Some students already had their eyes set on attending college far from Gilroy. Others were just happy with the fact they would no longer be called high-schoolers.
“I feel awesome. I just graduated,” an elated Gabriel Hernandez said. “I’m never coming back here again.”
The ceremony was filled with passionate moments, like when tears streamed down student Guadalupe Pacheco’s face as she read her welcome speech in Spanish.
Pacheco, who migrated to the United States from Mexico when she was eight years old, will become the first person in her family to attend college as she heads to the University of California-Santa Cruz this fall.
Later, during his keynote address, teacher Sean LaGuardia incited roaring applause when he called for the Gilroy Unified School District board to rehire recently ousted former athletic director Jack Daley.
“You were loyal to Jack Daley,” LaGuardia said to students, his voice elevating to a shout, “who should be reinstated by the board today!”
Before his speech, LaGuardia ran off stage and danced in and out of the student seating area wearing a flamboyant cardboard mask that paid homage to the class of 2011. He rolled his way back toward the podium on a skateboard as students cheered.
“Of all the people you could have chosen to give this speech, you chose me,” said LaGuardia, who jokingly described himself as “a 13-year-old trapped inside a 26-year-old’s body” and “the most irresponsible teacher in the history of the district.”
He calmly and slowly asked students to lean forward and hear the secret to life, before pointing his index finger toward them and saying, “There is no secret to life,” to mix of laughter and groans.
“If there was an easy way out, it would be absolutely pointless to live,” he said. “Live life with passion and without regret.”
LaGuardia had his own GHS graduation of sorts Friday night, as he will leave the school to enroll at the University of California-Berkeley. He regaled students with dozens of ways they filled him with pride in his four years as a math teacher at GHS.
“I’m not proud of you because of the places you’re going to or all the great things that you’re going to end up being,” he said. “I’m proud of you because of all the things you have taught me.”
He added, “You pushed me to be the best teacher that I can be.”
The athletic and academic honors earned by the newest graduating class were also on display.
Along with multiple Tri-County Athletic League and Central Coast Section titles this past school year, students raked in $1.2 million in scholarships – the most in GHS history, Sanchez said.
GHS was named one of the top high schools in the U.S. last summer by Newsweek for its efforts to challenge students with college-level course and exams.
The colleges and universities GHS graduates will attend were announced Friday night, including several University of California and California State University campuses, Stanford, Yale, Gavlian College and others.
“We have accomplished what most schools can only dream of,” senior class president Lauren Rhodes said.
Class salutatorian Brandon Sumida said GHS had allowed him to meet “some of the coolest people I’ve ever known.”
He said a part of him wished graduation hadn’t arrived so soon.
“About a month ago I got this horrible sinking feeling that a chapter in our lives was ending and another was just beginning,” said Sumida, who moved to California from Illinois when he was 10 years old. “Change is daunting.”
He later added, “Is there a pause button?”
Speakers even took time to take playful jabs at Christopher High School, which will have its first graduating class next year.
Sanchez happily reminded the Mustang faithful of its 40-17 victory over CHS in the inaugural Severance Bowl football game last November, and Valedictorian Satthea Khay told her fellow students they were “the last true class of Gilroy students.”
The GHS class of 2011 was also a diverse one, as eight foreign nations were represented among graduates: Cameroon, Australia, the United Kingdom, China, El Salvador, Mexico, Hungary and the Philippines.
Cat Pierotti contributed to this story.
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