Colony High graduates 223 Tuesday

WASILLA — Two key messages were shared with Colony High School’s 223 graduates at Tuesday’s ceremony at the Curtis D. Menard Sports Center: don’t let life just happen to you and keep believing in your dreams — no matter the obstacles.

And considering who was delivering those messages — former Channel 2 News sportscaster turned church pastor John “Carp” Carpenter and CHS Football Coach and cancer victim Brian McIntosh — they are most likely going to stick for the Class of 2011.

Carpenter, who recently made a career change after more than 26 years with KTUU, advised the seniors to go after life with as much gusto as possible.

“Be intentional with your life, be intentional with your morals, be intentional with your future,” the 52-year-old father said. “Don’t let life choose for you.”

Carpenter said 18-year-olds elsewhere in the country were asked if they would take steroids to win an Olympic gold medal if they knew the steroids would cause their death three years later.

Seventy percent of those surveyed said they would take the steroids even if they knew it would kill them.

“Seventy percent of those young people could not see themselves three years from now,” he said. “Can you? It’s absolutely crucial that you value your future. Your future is something waiting to be created and the only way to do that is to have a commitment to it. Committed people steer their own paths and persevere in the face of conflict.”

That’s exactly what Coach McIntosh is doing.

It’s been a year since he had his first seizure in his U.S. history class and was diagnosed with an anaplastic astrocytoma grade three brain tumor. The husband and father of two was facing a battle for his life against an unexpected, potentially deadly foe.

Doctors first thought it was a slow-growing cancer, but soon enough discovered it was more serious than that and sent him to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., last May.

Staying true to McIntosh’s philosophy to “go big or go home,” he defied the odds by being one of the rare people to have a grand mal seizure during his open-brain surgery at the clinic in June as doctors performed 20 different tests.

The good news is surgeons were able to remove 90 percent of the tumor. The bad news is he is left with speech and memory challenges — and plenty of medical bills.

Before he spoke to the seniors, CHS students from the National Honor Society, the Key Club and student government presented him with a check for $10,000 after a year of fundraising efforts.

McIntosh told the students he felt blessed to be a part of the CHS family and to be alive.

“I’m living the dream,” he said before sharing his favorite fishing story to illustrate the importance of going after what you want.

As his infamous “big red” halibut fishing rod dropped down from the Menard ceiling to roars of laughter, he said he defied the odds and snickers from fellow fishermen who told him he’d never catch a King Salmon with a halibut pole.

He not only caught the first King of the day during combat fishing at Montana Creek, but his second cast out was immediately successful, to boot.

“Sometimes you have to go out of your comfort zone and risk failure to make your dreams come true,” he told graduates. “As you go through life, you never know what life will bring. When in doubt, go big or go home.”

After hundreds of families, friends, and classmates packed into the sports center cheered each graduate as they crossed the stage for their diploma, they wowed them once more with a spectacular, glow-in-the-dark flash dance of sorts they’d learned in 30 minutes earlier that day.

And as all the green and white balloons were popped and discarded glow sticks were snatched up by younger siblings, Taelyr Aga’s grandmother, Carol Murdock, caught her breath in a chair vacated by a graduate.

“I’m very proud of her,” she said of her granddaughter as she breathed through oxygen tubes. “She earned a scholarship from Kodiak to be a teacher. That’s what I wanted to be, but I didn’t get to. I was one of those people who let life happen to them.”

Contact K.T. McKee at kate.mckee@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.