'We may have it together, but together we have it all'

PALMER — Palmer High School graduated 163 students on Tuesday night at Palmer High School.

Following musical performances and speeches from their peers and those that helped get them to graduation night, each student walked across the stage to receive their diploma and head out into the world.

Class speaker Teanna Nicholai told her classmates a message that was repeated throughout the night, that life would come with failure and the question becomes what will you do with that failure. Nicholai briefly told of struggles in her life that ended her up in foster care at the age of 16.

“I still remember what it felt like that night. I didn’t know where I was going to go and I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. Perhaps you might feel that way today,” Nicholai said. “When I sat down in Ms. VanderWeele’s office for the first time, it was a question if I would obtain the credits needed before graduation. I’m here.”

The assembled graduates and packed Palmer High School gym full of supporters interrupted Nicholai to applaud her. Nicholai told her fellow graduates the tale of her difficulty with International Baccalaureate science classes, but reminded them to always have a purpose.

“There may be a time that you don’t reach your goal. This is not the time to give up but rather this is the time where the most progress is made. When you fail you, have to adapt and adjust to overcome adversity. I wouldn’t change a single thing that happened to me because every failure was preparation,” Nicholai said.

Palmer High School Principal Paul Reid noted the bedrock that Palmer High School is built on, both literally and figuratively, referring to the Nov. 30, 2018, earthquake. Reid smiled as he hugged and shook hands with graduates, offering a last bit of advice as their principal.

“Stay grounded to the foundation from which you came,” Reid said.

Misty May Wilmarth-Agoff, the Master of Ceremonies, also worked an earthquake metaphor into her speech.

“Even when the world around us started literally shaking apart, Palmer High School stood strong and showed us how to bounce back after a traumatic event. And as we come to the end of our ride, we can look at the faces of our family, friends and all those who have supported us throughout the years and know that we have made them proud,” Wilmarth-Agoff said.

As graduates walked across the stage, they were greeted by teachers, administrators, and elected officials who have stepped up for education in Palmer.

“I think they’re doing an excellent job really. Our schools in the Mat-Su borough are really ones that should be examples for the whole state,” said Palmer Mayor Edna DeVries.

School Board Member Tom Bergey and Borough Deputy Mayor Matthew Beck were also on stage to shake the hands of each and every graduate from Palmer High.

“The young people from Palmer High School are encouraged to take risks and challenge themselves. I think the IB program is exceptional,” Beck said.

Keynote Speaker Sami King gave six lessons to the graduating seniors. King instructed the graduates to talk less, listen more, told them that people matter, to respect their elders, told them that their dreams would change, to give back and they will get back, and to do one thing every single day that they love. King began her speech with a moment of silence for respect to the Dena’ina, Ahtna and Athabascan land that Palmer High sits on. As her speech began a little after 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, King told the graduates ‘good morning.’

“If the only thing that you do is say good morning, even if it’s in the afternoon, give them that. It matters, they matter,” King said.

The IB program itself got plenty of praise throughout the night for it’s exceptional work in preparing students for the next level. Kiani Kalander and Kaitlyn Theonnes went the entertaining route on their graduation performance. The two composed and performed a medley of Queen songs with Kalander on the keys and Theonnes playing the tenor saxophone. Following a request from the school district to compile the numbers of scholarships awarded by each school’s graduating seniors, Reid was proud to announce that not only was the class of 2019 the top earning class in the district with over $5 million in scholarships awarded, but that the class of 2019 had exceeded that total, earning over $7.8 million in scholarships. Kalandar and Theonnes are just two of the ‘fabulous five’ female IB diploma graduates. Kalander also earned the Horatio Alger National Scholar Award that came with a $25,000 scholarship. Barb Carroll had both Kalander and Theonnes in her IB Music Theory class and applauded them for their progression as musicians. Kalander not only took a full slate of IB courses, but also plays piano for her church, the community choir, and maintains an excel spreadsheet of open time slots for accompanying fellow Palmer High musicians.

“That girl has it down to a science,” Carroll said of Kalander.

Kalander plans to study piano and organ performance at Brigham Young University in the fall. Theonnes plays five different instruments, and plans to play in the jazz band when she attends the University of California Berkeley in the fall.

“Last year for jazz festival we had a string ensemble perform and our viola player didn’t show up. So Kaitlyn played viola. She doesn’t play viola but she plays violin, so she’s like ‘oh, I’ll figure it out. Close enough.’ So she practiced that day and performed with a teacher ensemble that night,” Carroll said.

Fellow IB diploma grad and Valedictorian Jocelyn Zweifel said during her speech that she was proud of the education she received at Palmer High. The Palmer High School class of 2019 motto is “we may it have it together, but together we have it all,” and Zweifel stuck with the theme, letting her classmates know that it was okay to fail as long as you learn something from it.

“Now before I get caught up in saying go out and fail in the world let me first say fail responsibly, and what i mean by that is the type of failures we need in our lives are the ones where we learn from it. Failure is a part of learning and at Palmer High we have had the opportunity to not only fail but to learn from it as well, so once we do fail, we need to get back up and learn from it,” Zweifel said.

Zweifel plans to study microbiology at the University of Puget Sound in the fall and said that failures push you to improve. Zweifel said that the IB program helped her to learn to fail responsibly, as well as become a part of the community.

“Before I took the IB program, I felt like I did not truly understand when people said that Palmer High had a close knit community feel to it. But being a part of IB and learning to fail responsibly and together helped me understand why people of Palmer High find value in being involved in not only the school but also the town,” Zweifel said.

The fabulous five female IB diploma graduates alone earned over $2.5 million in scholarships. Fellow IB diploma graduates, Julia Safaric plans to attend Colby College, and Katie Ziegler plans to attend Hamline University in Minnesota to double major in philosophy and biomedical science. Ziegler’s mother, Kim, said that she would let go of tears of joy watching her daughter cross the stage.

“Watching over the last two years her growth and her ambition and her self motivation have just been amazing, because I never once had to push her to do her homework. She was so self motivated and it was just so amazing to watch and see that happen,” Kim Ziegler said.

Alyssa Martinez was happy to graduate with friends she had made in elementary school, and excited to move on in life towards becoming a lawyer. Martinez described her emotions walking across the stage.

“Happy, sad, amazing,” Martinez said. “We are going to miss this.”