Thursday, Jun. 11, 2009
Coast Union's Class of 2009 graduates
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closeCoast Union High School welcomed its latest group of alumni — 62 young men and women — at a June 4 ceremony filled with songs, laughs and a few tears.
“They were a phenomenal class,” counselor Cheryl Seay said.
All but a handful are headed on to school at culinary arts academy, community colleges and such four-year universities as Boston College, Fresno State and California State University at Stanislaus, she said.
Student speakers alluded to the recession and the uncertainty they and their classmates face in the nation’s worst economic slowdown since the Great Depression.
“Everyone has been asking me how I feel about graduating, and I tell them that I am excited,” said Katherine Carson, one of three valedictorians to speak. “What I don’t tell them is that I am also a little scared … of what the future might hold for me, and about the challenges I may have to face without the support system of our small community.”
Community support was a popular theme of the tight-knit class that weathered the January deaths of Coast alum Nikolas “Nik” Kwasny, 19, and 17-year-old Darac Goodwin, in traffic collision.
“Because we have lived in such a beautiful and peaceful place with more love and support from our family, friends, teachers and incredible community than anyone could ever hope for, we have learned how to see the true beauty in life,” added valedictorian Heather Druke.
The class received a record amount of scholarships — $33,000 from the San Luis Obispo County Community Foundation and more than $70,000 “from the communities of Cayucos, Cambria and Morro Bay,” Seay said.
Valedictorian Mackenzie Cunningham, who spoke after the Coast Union Choir sang Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young,” tried to sum up her “300,000 minutes” at Coast Union and the experiences that will forever link the Class of 2009.
Bonds formed not only in class “but on rides on a crowded bus to the middle of nowhere to compete against teams twice our size, in 10-hour days spent trying to get choreography down for the drama production … or in caravanning over to Rosa’s five minutes after the bell rings to surf together,” she said.
She closed not with a message of goodbye and good luck, but one of gratitude.
“To classmates and the memories and relationships that will last a lifetime, for teachers whose teaching never knew the boundaries of a classroom, for the smallness of a community that made us great, and for a school which taught us that what will be more significant than graduation and the success that attends it will be the relationships that we forge and the lives that we positively affect as a result of our education.
“So my one minute comes down to two words: thank you,” she said as the Class of 2009 stood to applause.
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