Photograph By Tim Kao
Nine students from this year's LGHS graduating class pause to talk about their lives. They are (front) Cheryl Gray; (second row from left) Teala Cotter, Nik Radonich, Yvonne Lin; (third row from left) Jarrett Carberry, Annalise Glauz-Todrank, Eduardo Gomez; (back row from left) Bobby Martin and Knowlton Shore.
Story By Shari Kaplan
On June 14, more than 300 Los Gatos High School seniors will follow the pomp and circumstance of caps and gowns, inspirational speeches, diplomas, handshakes, photographs and turning of the tassel.
With their lives before them, students will follow paths leading to college, careers, families, homes--and perhaps fame. Before their paths begin to diverge, nine graduating seniors have stopped to talk about their past, present and future.
Jarrett Carberry
For more than half of his high school career, Jarrett Carberry, 18, worked behind the scenes in the Prentiss Brown Auditorium to ensure that everything ran smoothly in terms of lighting, sound and other technical aspects.
Although he receives credit though "Special Projects LGHS," the Santa Cruz Mountains resident already has many elective units he doesn't need.
"I like doing tech work because it's a lot of hands-on stuff. It also gives me the honor of being the only student with administrative approval to have keys to most rooms and offices on campus," he says. Among his credits are school plays and musicals, the annual CASA fashion show, Community Concert Association performances and private dance company events. He does paid tech work at Foothill College as well.
"Lots of people spend lots of money to see shows and games and stuff, but I get to see a lot for free," adds Carberry, who juggles about 60 hours per month of tech work with school and other commitments. He thinks part of his ability to be flexible may stem from the Loma Prieta Joint Union School District home study program he did during his middle school years.
He will major in chemical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University this fall but plans to keep doing tech work on the side. His minor in creative writing will go well with another of his side interests--composing poetry and short stories.
Teala Cotter
'I stress a lot," reveals 18-year-old Teala Cotter. "My goal in life is to be stressless, comfortable and happy."
Despite this "stressful" propensity, she possesses a grace under pressure that enables her to carry out her many aspirations and interests.
Along with her course load--including many honors classes--Cotter took two years of wood shop as electives. She signed up, she said, because her grandfather was into woodworking and also because she thought it was "cool and different" to take a "guy's class."
"I always did my homework and stayed on top of things. I felt I did as good as a guy, and I did better than some of them," Cotter says, smiling.
Her magnum opus is a red oak dresser/entertainment center. Cotter bought the supplies and constructed the piece, which measures about five feet long and 4 1/2 feet tall, on her own.
Cotter also spends time helping others. In her junior year, she spent six weeks in Honduras as part of the "Amigos" program, whose work is similar to the Peace Corps. She taught kids to read, gave health presentations, built latrines and lived with a host family of six.
Locally, Cotter volunteers at the Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley in San Jose, feeding abandoned or ill animals and doing cleanup. She also finds time to tutor middle and high school students in math, Spanish and study skills. One of her most rewarding pupils was an autistic student named Joey; his communication and social skills improved so much, Cotter says, that she doesn't see him as autistic any more. She also sees him as a friend.
After graduating from Cal Poly with a materials engineering degree, Cotter hopes to return to the Bay Area, find a technology-related job and live somewhere like her native Santa Cruz Mountains.
Annalise Glauz-Todrank
Because she is multilingual, Annalise Glauz-Todrank often finds herself shifting gears in class, lest she call out the right word in the wrong tongue. "I've always loved English, and I like languages a lot," says the 18-year-old. Glauz-Todrank is most fluent in Spanish, which she has taken for several years. She also studied French and German.
Her other favorite classes were ceramics and journalism, the latter because "the class is about real life; it's based in reality, things I might use later in life." Glauz-Todrank, who lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains, has already jumped into "real life" with extracurricular activities connected to doing things for others.
Two years ago, she helped resume the Los Gatos High chapter of Amnesty International, in which she served as president. Members monitor human rights violations worldwide and write letters to foreign leaders to try to bring about changes. Glauz-Todrank also served as an officer in the Interact Club, affiliated with Rotary. Interact members raised money to sponsor a needy child in Mexico; they also do community service.
When not helping others, Glauz-Todrank performs for them. She enjoys acting and singing, and has been in three school productions.
At Hampshire College in Massachusetts, Glauz-Todrank will make her own major by blending different departments and fields of study. Although she has not decided on a profession yet, she is interested in law, psychology and religion. Later, she may join the Peace Corps. She may also attend graduate school.
"I'd like to be working with people, but I'm not sure in what way," she says. "Maybe this sounds idealistic, but I want to make the world a better place."
Eduardo Gomez
When Eduardo Gomez arrived in Los Gatos from Mexico City as a fifth-grader, he noticed some pleasantly surprising differences.
"When I came here, it was like a vacation. The school I went to there was much harder," he says, recalling how he learned certain concepts in fourth grade that he didn't revisit here until seventh.
At graduation, Gomez will follow in the footsteps of his mother, who grew up in Los Gatos and is the fourth generation of her family, originally from Sweden, to live in the Santa Clara Valley. Gomez's great-great-grandfather helped build a railroad from Los Gatos to Santa Cruz, and his great-grandfather had a hand in building the dome on Mt. Hamilton's Lick Observatory.
Being part of two cultures, the 18-year-old says, has given him interest and understanding for the differences and similarities among people of varied backgrounds.
"I also get a distinctive view of things because my dad's a sociologist. He shows us things that most people don't see," Gomez says, citing social trends and intercultural relations. As well as participating in the Los Gatos High International Club for two years, Gomez took three years of German--"I wanted to learn a third language, and this was interesting."
Gomez plans to study industrial engineering and economics at San Jose State University this fall and hopes to land a job involving travel and the use of languages. He adds that being trilingual will stand him in good stead when dealing with economic issues.
Cheryl Gray
According to 18-year-old Cheryl Gray, overcoming the "why me?" syndrome has taught her as much about life as school taught her about academics. As a seventh-grader, Gray learned she has ulcerative colitis, which causes intermittent inflammations of the intestinal tract often brought on by illness or stress. Although this caused her to miss a portion of her sophomore year, it taught her some lessons as well.
"I've learned how to deal with stress a lot better. I have to control what I'm stressing about," the Santa Cruz Mountains resident says. When conflicts arise among her and friends, for example, she works toward resolution because she realizes "we're fighting over nothing." When faced with a difficult class, she views it more as an adventure than a disaster.
"Calculus was my hardest, but my favorite too. It's challenging enough to make me feel I'm learning something. It's satisfying to be able to do something that seemed so hard to begin with," says Gray, a member of the California Scholarship Federation with a 4.1 GPA. One of her favorite classes was drafting; she took to it so much that she now plans on designing her own home, which her contractor father will build when the time comes.
Gray is also devoted to sports. She swam for four years on the junior varsity and varsity swim teams, and has played softball for nine years at school and elsewhere. She also has a passion for skiing--both snow and water.
At UC--Davis this fall, Gray will enter with an undeclared major. She originally considered a career as a psychologist or counselor, but recognized that with her empathetic nature, she would take clients' problems too personally. She is now thinking about law or medicine.
"All I know is that I want to work with people because of my personality and what I've gone through," she says.
Yvonne Lin
Forming artwork with her hands and persuasive arguments with her words are two activities of which Yvonne Lin is very fond.
The 18-year-old Monte Sereno resident took art classes, including advanced placement classes, throughout her four years at Los Gatos High. She held art apprenticeships and spent six weeks at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she specialized in sculpture. She also took advanced placement classes in English, calculus and biology.
Since her sophomore year, Lin has found time to be on the speech and debate team, which meets or competes almost every weekend. Her forté is philosophical matters, which this semester gave her the opportunity to speak on "cultural unity above cultural diversity."
"I do so much with Speech and Debate and art that I don't have much time for other things," Lin says, although she also does set work for school plays and graphic design for local businesses.
Lin is looking at a double major at Rhode Island's Brown University, with some type of art along with perhaps pre-medicine or pre-law--"as comprehensive course load as I can take as a freshman. I know I'm decent in art, but I want to do well academically too," she says.
"I know I enjoy arguing and I'm good at it, but I don't know if I want the stress," she adds regarding the field of law.
Bobby Martin
Santa Cruz Mountains resident Bobby Martin, 17, learned about leadership during his high school years. He will now apply what he's learned at West Point Academy, where he will earn a bachelor's degree while preparing for service as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army.
Among his favorite high school classes was 20th Century World, in which he and classmates role-played the running of various countries. "It was really stressful but I think it showed whether I could be a good leader," Martin says.
Other responsibilities that proved stressful yet valuable to Martin included positions as president of the Spanish Club and the California Scholarship Federation, his service as senior class treasurer and his years on the school's water polo, wrestling and swim teams. "It's not hard but it's kind of tedious. You have to be dedicated or the work will sit there and never get done," he says of being treasurer.
"CSF was my first leadership position. I learned how to speak in front of people," he adds, explaining how he overcame a stutter and a fear of public speaking. "I just told myself that I'll have to do this a lot in my future profession, so I might as well get used to it now."
Martin will emerge from West Point a second lieutenant and aspires to make a career out of the Army; some day he plans to hold the title of general. He says he chose the Army rather than another service branch because it is the most people-oriented, which is how he describes himself as well.
Nik Radonich
'For me, working is my favorite thing to do. Any work I do is something that I like and want to do," says Nik Radonich.
Since he was a boy, Radonich has helped out with C.B. Hannegan's mobile catering service, partly because he grew up with co-owner Chris Benson's sons. When he's not barbecuing, Radonich, 18, puts his hands to other tasks, such as the metal shop elective he took throughout high school.
"It's the class here that I can say I've mastered. For me, school is interesting, but I wasn't so into academics. Metal shop gave me a chance to further my education in something I'm interested in," he says. Two other activities to which he devoted four years are football and soccer.
In his free time, Radonich enjoys tinkering--sometimes past midnight--on the five vintage-to-modern Jeeps he and his dad have collected. Earlier this year, he custom-built an all-purpose trailer for one of his Jeeps.
The Jeep comes in handy during another of Radonich's pastimes--working at the Radonich Evergreen Farm his grandparents run in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The family has owned mountain land since 1890, says Radonich, who frequents the farm to help water and trim young Christmas trees and also for some quiet time outdoors.
"I can't sit in one place very long. I have to be productive. Even if I'm sitting down, I'll be doodling or something," Radonich says, adding that he wouldn't mind owning his own business or being a firefighter. He has signed up for West Valley College, although he has also been accepted to a firefighter's training school in Chico. He says he'll decide by the end of June.
Knowlton Shore
While other Boy Scouts may drop out as they grow older, Knowlton Shore remained active throughout his teenage years, earning Eagle recognition as the capstone to his many years of Scouting.
Shore, 18, organized a trail-improvement plan for Castle Rock State Park as his Eagle service project. He and his troop--still headed by his Scoutmaster grandfather--devoted several weeks to the project. "We moved 300 feet of the Saratoga Gap Trail, which was being eroded by the creek. We also moved the bridge and put in cement foundations and bridge cables," Shore explains.
The outdoors attracts him in other ways too, including hiking, backpacking, track & field and cross country. He even ran through Millbrae as an escort runner during the recent Bay Area leg of the Olympic Torch relay.
Indoors, Shore names manufacturing class as one of his favorites. He helped begin the Los Gatos High chapter of the Vocational and Industrial Clubs of America. He was active in CSF, the International Club and the Campus Impact Club, and played saxophone for two years in the Wildcat Marching and Jazz bands.
Church activities also figure into Shore's life, including choir singing. About two years ago, he traveled to Mexico with "YUGO," a Christian ministry organization. He and other young people spent two weeks in the Baja town of Rosarito, running what he likens to a vacation Bible school.
Although he planned to attend the University of Colorado, Boulder, Shore now says he's not sure if that's for him. He considered military service, and has received recommendations to the Naval and Air Force academies, but does not envision doing that right away. He says he will probably attend a junior college, transfer to a university, and take it from there.
"I've learned you should follow your heart and do what you feel inside, rather than what someone else sets up for you," Shore says. "And I've learned the importance of being in and contributing to a small community. I like people and I appreciate all people in a community."
GRADUATION
Commencement for Los Gatos High School's 330-member Class of 1996 begins at 6 p.m. June 14 on the front lawn; the program includes addresses by valedictorian Karen Huang and salutatorian Dan Levy. TV station KCAT will broadcast the graduation exercises.
Commencement for Leigh High School's 377-member Class of 1996 begins at 5 p.m. June 13 in the football bowl stadium, 5210 Leigh Ave.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, June 12, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved