In front of a packed grandstand, senior class savors the memories, look to the road ahead during commencement ceremony
During her address at the school’s commencement ceremony on Friday, May 30, she reminded members of the Class of 2025 to do the same.
During her first year as superintendent/principal at Santa Ynez Valley Union High School, Dr. Kimberly Sheehan said she noticed how so many alumni from the school are ready, willing, and able to support the current students although many “don’t even still have students here.”
“Remember, once a Pirate, always a Pirate,” Sheehan said, with the robed and capped graduates-to-be behind her. “The world awaits your greatness. Go out and get it! And someday return to give back to your home.”
Friends and family of the new graduates packed the grandstand on a sunny day at Rio Memorial Field as 211 students took the walk from the gym to their seats on the playing field to get their diplomas.
Graduate Sophia Merz opened the ceremony by taking the podium and welcoming the audience before leading everyone in the pledge of allegiance. She then handed the mic over to Opal Vander Vliet, who sang the national anthem.
After, Grace Vazquez and Jacqueline Godinez came to the mic. Vazquez thanked the audience for coming and then reminded spectators to refrain from using any noisemakers like air horns so people can hear their graduate’s name called. That produced a few audible chuckles from the stands from some who figured the rule would be completely followed. Godinez took the floor to repeat those instructions in Spanish.
Chloe Ann Perez was the first student speaker, and she began by looking back on the differences of the day compared to her and her classmates’ starts as freshmen.
“I remember about four years ago, we came to high school wearing masks trying to make friends with faces we didn’t even know. Literally,” she said. “It was the era where the terms ‘mask fishing’ and ‘mask reveal’ were thrown around, and I can’t lie, at the time, being told one of those phrases was my biggest fear.”
“Now I stand here today, with no mask, seeing familiar faces in the field who I’m graduating with — and my biggest fear is what comes next?”
Perez went to thank the teachers at SYHS, singling out one “Ms. (Claudia) Pena: She taught me that all emotions are valid and gave me advice on how to overcome them. If you’re here Ms. Pena, thank you. You were there for me even when I felt I had no friends to talk to.”
Perez ended her address by invoking the pirate theme prevalent at SYHS: “We boarded this pirate ship as stowaways and are now embarking on a new phase of life as captains of our own destinies.”
The second commencement speaker was Ilan Torres, who stressed the “power of connection” in the class and, like Perez, marveled at how far they’ve come.
“Since freshman year, our dreams have become bigger and our jeans have become baggier,” he said. “We’ve gained powerful tools of rhetoric, leadership, and resilience by participating in school activities and sports. This is backed up by the numerous awards and CIF titles on our wall of accolades.”
Torres also joked about the student body’s degree of “connection” as well as previous years’ instability of school leadership.
“Something else that makes this student body unique is that’s it’s deeply connected,” he said. “You could pick any two students from this class and there would be a 50% chance that they’ve dated each other at some point. There’s a lot of love here. Still, some of these studentshave had as many high school exes as principals.”
However, Torres concluded that relationships and connections are the most important things.
“We must never forget that humans are designed to be together,” he said. “Many of our emotions function to promote social bonding and collectivity, which makes our species more powerful in nature.”
After Torres spoke, Sheehan returned to recognize the 46 members of the Class of 2025 who earned the distinction of Graduates with Highest Honors: Those who earned a GPA of 4.0 or better for seven semesters. After that announcement, and then a musical performance from Ruby Andreu and Naomi Ferguson, it was time to award the diplomas.
Santa Ynez Valley Union High School District Board President Chris Johnson took the stage to accept the Class of 2025, then the first graduate to be announced was Malia Ortiz, who was absent because she was competing in the CIF State Track and Field meet in the pole vault.
The handing out of diplomas started as the over 200 graduates took “the walk” to the podium and then down the ramp toward the stands to cheers from the crowd. Then, the final graduate, Cailin Glover arrived at the podium and instructed her classmates to “turn your tassels.”
After the ceremony, the new graduates celebrated with their family and friends on the field, and express mixed feelings about the experiences they leave behind and the ones that are ahead. One of them is Kurran Kays, who proudly displayed the red-and-black logo on his mortar board signifying his future school, San Diego State University, where he will be majoring in journalism.
“It kind of bittersweet, there are a lot of people I’m going to miss here, but I’m pretty excited about where I’m going,” said Kays, who said his favorite memory at SYHS is “Ms. Rod’s honors geometry class, that was my sophomore; she gave me the tools to learn and really took that the rest of the way.”
Congratulations to the Pirates’ Class of 2025.
