Students overcome obstacles to graduate

John Harte / The Californian Joseph Medina acknowledges the cheers as he moves across the stage to receive his diploma Saturday. John Harte / The Californian Graduate Renee Aragon holds her 6-month-old daughter Shayanne Dorado after the ceremony Saturday. John Harte / The Californian Graduate Paul Hinzo is showered with gifts following his graduation Saturday. John Harte / The Californian Sterling Endsley was one of five students who gave inspiring speeches, all with a similar theme: how they overcame past problems and bad decisions to reach the graduation stage. John Harte / The Californian Graduate Mike Fenster carries his niece Sienna Aguilar, 3, around the post ceremony reception at Bakersfield High School Saturday afternoon. John Harte / The Californian Graduate Renee Aragon looks out to her family as she walks across the stage to receive her diploma Saturday.

Filed: June 10, 2001

By CHRIS PAGE
Californian staff writer
e-mail: cpage@bakersfield.com

Many of the teen-agers assembled at Bakersfield High School's Harvey Auditorium Saturday afternoon never imagined this moment would come.

"I was at Juvenile Hall more than I was in regular high school," said Sterling Endsley, one of 111 seniors graduating from the Kern County Superintendent of Schools' Court, Community and Charter Schools program -- where Kern high school students end up after being expelled from regular school districts. "But now I'm reaching for the stars."

Although Endsley and other student speakers talked of hopes and dreams in lives ahead, there were a few not-so-subtle differences between this and a typical high school graduation -- namely guest speaker Donald Towns, whose speech focused on a 21-year-old friend's gang-related home invasion murder.

"Every person in here is going to die," Towns said to graduates and their families and friends, "and what you do with your life becomes very important when you realize, one day, you're going to die."

A video montage of graduating seniors -- created by the program's Media Arts Academy, set to the "Survivor" theme song -- included testimonials from students who had sold drugs or spent time in juvenile detention centers before turning a new leaf in the school system.

The student speakers, all focusing on the ceremony's theme of "Reach for the Stars," were to-the-point.

"I never thought I'd be giving a graduation speech," Epifanio Moreno said. "If anything, I thought I'd be in front of a parole board."

Program administrators overseeing the graduation ceremony took notice of what the event meant to the students -- perhaps more so, they felt, than graduating students at traditional schools.

"Some of us take this for granted and the people here appreciate it a little more," Administrator Ken Taylor said.

For graduates like Derek Graves, 18, a major hurdle has been passed, but more await.

"I thought it was hard to get here. I had to go through a lot of perseverance to get here," he said.

Graves, who was kicked out of Ridgeview and West high schools before enrolling at the Community Learning Center, is looking to enroll at Bakersfield College and, ultimately, find work in computer drafting -- maybe even, as one of his teachers suggested, working in computer animation for Disney films.