More than a diploma

WASILLA — Watching the ceremony at Mat-Su Career and Technical High School Friday, one thing seemed clear — these 40-some graduates have their feet planted firmly on the ground.

Which is why their diplomas come with a sheaf of certificates showing all the training they’ve received in their years at school. Though many will go on to study at college, a good percentage of these students are looking for jobs. And the school is there to help, said principal Ben Eveland.

“We don’t like the idea of dropkicking you guys off the stage and saying, OK, you’re graduated,’” he said.

Valedictorian Nicole Raymond, who graduated from the school’s Heath and Fitness Pathway with help from graduating senior Aliena Johnston, who also studied health and fitness, choose to rely on the words of one of America’s great authors — Dr. Seuss. The pair conducted “senior story time” and read the entirety of “Oh the Places You’ll Go.”

“On you will go though the weather be foul. On you will go though your enemies prowl,” were some of Seuss’ words imparted to the graduating class.

For her trouble, Eveland handed Raymond a pen.

“The only thing special about this pen is it signed each and every one of your diplomas,” Eveland said, before joking, “I’m pretty sure I got them all.”

Salutatorian Bradley Kurtzweil told his classmates of a time when he was very young. He didn’t talk much. His parents brought him to a specialist to run a battery of tests on his motor skills. He grabbed a pair of tweezers for one test and put a small ball through a small hole. Kurtzweil said his motor skills were off the charts. It’s something that’s served him well.

“Everybody grab your tweezers and lets go!” he told his colleagues.

The ceremony’s Keynote speaker, Gerry Andrews, recently named the state’s training administrator for a plan to prepare workers to take on the task of building a natural gas pipeline, told the graduates to look back at moments they remembered. He asked them to think about how those moments contributed to bringing them to where they are today.

From there he spoke of his own formative experiences, how when he moved to Fairbanks his father told him he wanted “to move so far back into the Bush they would have to pipe sunlight in to us.”

He also spoke about working hard and winding up in his current position.

By the end, he tied it all together with the class’ motto, “nothing we do changes the past — everything we do changes the future.”

“Your memories are your past, your dreams are your future,” he told the graduates.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.