Saturday night saw 106 College Place High School graduates cross the stage as the sixth graduating class in the young, but strong history of the school. In a ceremony held in the school’s Hawk Stadium, the overflow crowd of family and friends gathered to celebrate the class. The class of 2023 endured the second half of their freshman year and the better part of their sophomore year in the throes of the pandemic, but showed their resilience Saturday night.
During the ceremony, Valedictorian Awards were given to 4.0 GPA students Jacob Courtney, Luke Christensen, Mya Adams, and Tiana Tran, Salutatorian Awards were given to Anureet Sandhu and Connor Torrescano, while the Soaring Hawk Student Athlete Awards went to Lena Weaver and Daman Burgener, with the “Hawk Award” to Sophia Enriquez.
Student speakers Sam Menchaca and Jera Bjornberg centered the messages on the many challenges the class of 2023 overcame to get to the stage Saturday night. Menchaca’s message of “Breathe Through Change” reminded students to continue to breathe as things change and find hope as they have over years of challenges including re-learning people’s faces after masks came off. Bjornberg applauded the staff at CPHS for their genuine love and support of students in her speech titled “Tomorrow.” The speech spoke of the challenges Bjornberg faced with mental health and the support the staff offered her to be able to find her way to “tomorrow.” She encouraged her classmates to know their value and to look forward to each tomorrow.
The highlight of the ceremony was the message from student-selected staff speaker Gordon Smith. Smith, a CPHS Science and Mathematics teacher originally from Scotland shared that in Scotland students don’t graduate, they just take their final exams and wait for the good (or bad) news a few months later. He stated that the celebration of this accomplishment of graduation is something that “America gets right even if they drive on the wrong side of the road.” His math-themed speech challenged the students to be “radicals” as the math term would indicate they should “never repeat, but be unique and the best version of you” and that radical numbers never end making them unique, just like the students before him. The final point Smith shared was that radical numbers always are positive, something that students need to remember in spite of challenges they will face.
Principal Robert Aguilar congratulated the class on their resilience, their strength, and how despite the global pandemic, they proved to be a class that has had strong success and brought great hope. The ceremony ended with the traditional turning of the tassels and throwing of the caps with the beautiful backdrop of the Blue Mountains. Family and friends then joined the graduates on the field for the post-ceremony celebration.