m5/11/2009yTCcfewell WWW.TIMESCALL.COM | SUNDAY, MAY 10, 2009 | SPECIAL SECTION
GRADUATION
Message to the graduates By Randy Zila Guest opinion for the Times-Call
These four students seem prepared, though. “They’re ready to get out of the high school environment,” Kohn said. “They want to start their life.” But the students don’t seem to be expecting big changes between high school and college. “I don’t think it’s be too much different,” Shade said, adding that she thinks college will make her a better and stronger person. Sorensen said, “It’s just going to be like a new school.” Seele, the youngest of the four, said her parents aren’t too concerned about her going away to college shortly after her 17th birthday. CSU-Pueblo is just a few hours away, after all. “I’ll see them a lot,” Seele said. These students don’t expect to miss their senior year of high school, they said. Many of their friends have graduated or are graduating this year. Sorensen said, “My friends are pretty pumped because I’m graduating with them.”
Congratulations graduating senior class of 2009! This is a joyful occasion and I salute you and your families on your achievement. As freshmen each of you set a goal to earn your diploma and, after years of persistence, you achieved it. Remember this, graduates: goal setting and persistence got you here today and goal setting and persistence will get you where you’re going tomorrow. Surveying your ranks, I envision highly successful and ethical citizens. I see tomorrow’s accountants, entrepreneurs, policemen, pilots, artists, educators, engineers, doctors, soldiers, carpenters and ministers. I see creative problem solvers, good neighbors, involved parents and engaged citizens. I see the future of our nation! Regardless of what you choose to be and wherever you go, make the decision now to be your best. After all, you are graduates of the St. Vrain Valley School District and your parents, your teachers, the community and I expect you to be a Zila force for good in the world and a model for students following in your footsteps. Graduation day is like very few others in your young life. With small steps, year-afteryear, grade-by-grade, you arrived to this day, poised to embrace the future. Many of you will enroll in universities or community colleges, enlist in military service, attend a trade school, pursue an online degree while obtaining valuable work experience, or take a gap year and donate your time and energy to humanitarian service. These are wise choices! Nonetheless, you will be challenged and tested. Like graduates who’ve walked before you, it’s normal to experience moments of difficulty and doubt. In times of uncertainty or confusion, I urge you to recall what you learned while earning this diploma, goal setting and persistence — always taking steps, small ones if necessary, in relentless pursuit of your goals. I also would like to share this advice with you because it has served me well: Hold yourself to a high level of integrity; don’t fear failure, it brings opportunity; do what’s right, not just what’s easy; try not to take things personally; nurture confidence and forgiveness; learn from mistakes — yours and others’; solve problems with creativity and innovation; communicate to be understood; be tolerant of others’ differences; practice patience and understanding; be bold, brave and courageous; make time for reading, writing and singing; don’t give in when the going gets tough; know your talents, celebrate accomplishments; and, be a lifelong learner. Graduates, the future is yours to realize. You have the potential to cure cancer, bring peace to a war-torn country, discover another universe, author a best-selling book, heal the environment and successfully carry out the duties of elected office. You might be tempted to think you are ordinary, but I disagree. Extraordinary potential is within you. In closing, I won’t say goodbye, I’ll just say “see you soon.” I look forward to hearing about your achievements in the news, chance encounters at the grocery store and receiving updates about your accomplishments from teachers, parents and family friends. I’m proud of you, St. Vrain graduates. The world awaits your dreams.
Victoria Camron can be reached at 303-684-5226 or vcamron@times-call.com.
Dr. Randy Zila is the St. Vrain Valley School District superintendent of schools.
Joshua Buck/Times-Call
From left: Frederick High School juniors Harley Shade, 17, Meghan Tafoya, 17, Scott Sorensen, 17, and Chelsea Seele, 16, have all fulfilled requirements for graduation.
Early Exit Four Frederick High juniors set to graduate Story by Victoria A.F. Camron • Longmont Times-Call REDERICK — Most kids say they can’t wait to get out of high school, but four Frederick High School juniors are so ready to leave, they are graduating early. Scott Sorensen, Meghan Tafoya, Chelsea Seele and Harley Shade have completed the necessary credits. So instead of sitting home on May 23, they will be walking across the stage, accepting their diplomas. “I’m excited. We get our cap and gown soon,” Shade, 17, said in late April. To be eligible for early graduation, the students also had to be accepted into college. “They can’t just graduate and not go anywhere,” school counselor Adam Kohn said. Shade was a little disappointed that she had to be accepted to college to graduate early, she said. “That was kind of bad, because I wanted to take a year off,” said Shade, who will attend Red Rocks Community College. Shade lives in Dacono, while the other three all live in Firestone. Sorensen, 17, earned early admission to the University of Colorado School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and plans to study aerospace engineering.
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Tafoya is headed to Metropolitan State College of Denver for a degree in psychology and wants to join the Peace Corps after college, she said. Sixteen-year-old Seele will go to Colorado State University at Pueblo, where she will be roommates with a friend from Frederick High. She intends to major in business, she said. Eight Frederick High School students looked into graduating early, Kohn said. He meets with students and their parents, and the students meet with principal Jim Sundberg, as well. Sorensen long planned to graduate early, he said, because he was held back in kindergarten and is among the oldest in his class. He’ll turn 18 in August, he said. Throughout the school year, Kohn had several informal conversations with the students about leaving high school early, he said. Until mid-April, it looked like five juniors would graduate this spring, but then one changed his mind. In 2008, one junior decided two days before graduation to come back for senior year, Kohn said. “College is not just academics. It’s also the environment,” Kohn said. “If they’re not ready, they usually figure it out.”
Alexander Dawson student talks about achievements, music and travels By Victoria A.F. Camron Longmont Times-Call LAFAYETTE — Stevie Wolf. His name has been in the TimesCall before, in the prep sports scores; with October’s students of the month; and on the listing of the all-area tennis players. Here, as Paul Harvey would have said, is the rest of the story. Stevie Wolf, 17, is an accomplished guitarist who writes songs and plays bass, drums and piano as well. Throughout high school, he was a high honor roll student at Alexander Dawson School, a private, collegepreparatory school south of Longmont. He was named a National Merit
Scholarship finalist; he will study music Tufts University in Boston. Fluent in Spanish, he volunteered to help underprivileged people in Mexico and St. Louis. He’s completed more than 300 hours of community service since June 2006. He describes himself as a ChrisWolf tian and a Buddhist, and he spent three weeks last summer living with monks in Thailand. And he has been diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome, obsessivecompulsive disorder and attentiondeficit hyperactivity disorder.
Tourette’s syndrome is a neurological disorder that causes repeated, sudden and involuntary movements or speech, known as tics. “Music was my tic ... I’d always sing a song in my head,” said Wolf, who lives in Boulder. He’s turned that music in his head into 25 written songs, he said. He started studying guitar in seventh grade for what he now says were “pretty superficial reasons. ... It’s pretty cool.” Within a few months, though, he realized he loves music and he expanded his repertoire from rock ’n’ roll to jazz and classical. He started a guitar club at Dawson, so younger students could learn to play, and he annually attends a world-renown guitar workshop in
California during the summer. “Music has always had a huge influence on my brain,” Wolf said. Because of his disorders, Wolf said, “My brain gets a lot more tired, trying to focus.” So staying organized, getting his schoolwork and homework done — and doing it all well and on time — has been a challenge for him. But those disorders also seem to have made Wolf more insightful than many of his peers. “I realized that life is something we only live once,” Wolf said in April. So he decided that he liked learning and he wanted to take advantage of every opportunity he could. He spent two weeks of summer 2007 studying British politics, cre-
ative writing and leadership at Oxford University. For the last quarter of his sophomore year, he lived in Seville, Spain, attending the International School of Europe. Last summer’s time with the Buddhist monks was Wolf’s favorite trip, though. “It was a pretty interesting spiritual journey,” Wolf said. It taught him to look at life and how people interact, he said. “The monks taught me a lot about that,” Wolf said. It helps him better understand the people around him, he said. “We all have lots of problems.” Victoria Camron can be reached at 303-684-5226 or vcamron@times-call.com.
“Don’t count on someone else to change your world, but determine that you will be that someone who makes a difference. Remember the world is changing rapidly, and the world you live in will be filled with differences; d tthe be tolerant of differences, work with them as a strength, and d seek to understand them.” hem. ndent nt of Schoo Sch ools l ls -Dr. Randy Zila, Superintendent Schools
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