New pathways for Edison grads

Andrew Edwards

After 12 years of homework, classes and fun, the members of Edison

High School’s class of 2004 are ready to go.

Graduating Chargers capped off their high school careers with a

high-energy ceremony at the school’s center stage. The sun had burned

through the June gloom just in time for commencement, and the crowd

of graduates’ families and friends cheered loudly as the seniors

celebrated their accomplishments.

“I’m very proud of my son, and I wouldn’t want anybody else,” said

Cathy Edmun, whose son Robert plans to attend the police academy at

Golden West College. A family tradition in the Edmun family is to go

out to dinner on Friday nights and read the police blotter in the

newspaper.

Maggie Nguyen, was there to cheer on her brother Tung Nguyen who

is deaf and successfully completed the school’s special-education

program.

“It is a huge achievement for him -- him being in special

education and everything,” she said. “I’m really excited to see him

through.”

Many of the graduates were thrilled to commemorate the end of high

school, and looked forward to the chance to embark on a new course.

“Here is the chance to deviate from our path of comfort and

dependence and pioneer,” salutatorian Melissa Wake said.

Edison’s 521 graduates will part ways to discover new roads. Some,

like Michael Mullee, who was chosen as the year’s senior speaker,

already have a clear sense of where they want to go. Mullee said he

will take a route similar to that of his older siblings when he

attends the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, and he said he hopes to

be commissioned as an aviator. His brother attended West Point, and

his sister went to the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

“I kind of had to round it out,” he said.

Graduate Jess Cvetas, plans to go a very different direction. He

wants to become an animator.

“I have a plan and I’m ready,” she said. “I think it’s an art to

bring a character from a piece of paper, and you bring them to life

and it seems so real.”

Teacher Ken Ammann, encouraged the seniors and their parents to

say three words to each other after the ceremony, three words to show

that they care for and appreciate each other.

“We love you,” Tim Baldwin, told his daughter Rachel.