Separate graduation ceremony held for foreign student

Bakersfield Adventist Academy honors girl before return home in Tajikistan.

The Californian Bakersfield Adventist Academy student Elena Magay graduated Sunday in a special ceremony.

Filed: June 4, 2001

By STEVEN MAYER
Californian staff writer
e-mail: smayer@bakersfield.com

Eighteen-year-old Elena Magay was hoping to graduate with her senior class at Bakersfield Adventist Academy next week -- but there was a slight glitch in that plan.

By Wednesday, the award-winning student will be several thousand miles away from the northeast Bakersfield campus, headed for her home in the former Soviet Republic of Tajikistan in south central Asia.

So Sunday evening, Elena, glowing in cap and gown, glided across that ceremonial stage to the supporting cheers of school friends, well-wishers and her local host family. The moment was bittersweet. Like most of life's crossroads, it signaled both a hopeful beginning and a profound ending.

"This town, the people at this school and in particular, my host family, have really become my new family since I came here in August," Elena said during Sunday's event. "It's going to be very hard to leave."

Elena said she is anxious to be back with her family, whom she hasn't seen for more than nine months, but the joy of being with them again means another family must be left behind.

"She's like our own daughter," said Gary Hollingsead who, with his wife, Cori, opened his home to the exchange student last year.

"She's been such a joy; we've learned an awful lot from her," he said. "I had two children; now I have three."

Elena came to Bakersfield as part of the Future Leaders Exchange, a program that brings promising students from former Soviet republics to schools in the United States, said Bakersfield Adventist Principal Linda Fent.

This year, the program received more than 50,000 applications from students who wanted to attend school in the United States. Elena was one of just 1,100 who were accepted.

"When she arrived at the beginning of the school year, she was really quiet," recalled Bakersfield Adventist junior Marcie Anglen. But once Elena began to feel comfortable, she talked to students about her home and its similarities and dissimilarities to life in the United States.

"I've learned a lot about American culture since I arrived," Elena said. "It's very different from my country's culture."

During her stay, Elena toured Washington, D.C., an experience she described as "awesome." And she learned how to downhill ski during a trip with the Hollingseads.

A $12,000 scholarship to Pacific Union College in Northern California means Elena may be able to continue her schooling in California.

But the news doesn't make this week's parting much easier.

"This afternoon they were all crying together," Hollingsead said of Elena and his two children. "It's been quite an adventure; it's gone so fast."