CTHS graduates 87; Eveland retires

WASILLA — Addressing the 87 graduating seniors of Mat-Su Career and Technical High School, salutatorian Kristina Gergilevich told her classmates about a project she embarked in the summer of her 13th year.

Every night she took a picture of the sunset from atop a hill.

“We are waiting for that sunset today,” she said. “Tonight there will be another sunset. But for us it represents something else.”

She invited her classmates to pick their own metaphor — the first page of a book; a blank canvas — but graduation, she said, is the start of a new stage in life.

For the school’s principal, the ceremony also marked a transition. Ben Eveland is retiring this year. He was the principal when the school opened four years ago, which means that this class is the first one to have attended the school all four years. And it’s a great class to go out on, he said.

“Every single qualifying senior has passed the high school qualifying exam,” Eveland said. “I know that extraordinary qualities lie in each and every one of you.”