‘This is an amazing collection of young people’

Michael Miller

When Kiran Kumar graduated from Costa Mesa High School in 1990, he

didn’t envision himself leading crowds.

“I used to be so shy,” said Kumar, who now teaches math at the

school. “I never imagined I’d be standing in front of a classroom.”

Thursday, however, he faced a much larger group than the average

calculus class. For Costa Mesa High’s 43rd annual commencement, the

students voted Kumar to be the faculty speaker. Addressing the crowd

without notes, the former Mustang wove a speech out of his

surroundings, pointing to the football field and unfinished buildings

at Orange Coast College as metaphors for the students’ future.

“When I look at this structure and this field, I have expectations

on them,” he said. “We long for you to make this a beautiful

building. We want you to play a good game and succeed.”

The future is always uncertain, but the 255 seniors who flipped

their tassels had impressive credentials for the last four years,

with 40 Academic Honor Medallion winners, 28 National Honor Society

members and 26 California Scholarship Federation seal bearers.

“This is an amazing collection of young people, and I speak for

the entire faculty when I say we look forward to someday reading

about your accomplishments,” principal Fred Navarro told the crowd.

While the ceremony, held at the college’s LeBard Stadium, featured

a homegrown faculty speaker, the student speaker hailed from further

away. Matalena Enesi, who moved to Costa Mesa in 2004 from the South

Pacific, talked about her jarring first impressions of American

teens.

“American kids are loud and consume massive amounts of candy and

soda,” Enesi said, getting a laugh from her mostly native audience.

Carley Millian, the Associated Student Body president, paid

tribute in her speech to the faculty who spurred her to do better.

“I would like to thank all the teachers who wouldn’t settle for

less than our best,” she said.

Navarro and junior high principal John Garcia, who have both been

at the school for three years, had distinct memories of Millian from

their first day on the job. This year marked the first class that

Navarro and Garcia have seen all the way through high school.

“Carley is the first student John and I met when we came to the

school -- a skinny little ninth-grader who started peppering us with

tough questions,” Navarro told the crowd.