COSTA MESA HIGH SCHOOL:Leadership takes student paper far

Nguyen, 18, served as editor-in-chief for two years in a row of her school’s newspaper, the Hitching Post. Almost every day after school, she devoted extra hours to writing stories, assigning photographs, designing the layout. She also brought a number of innovations to the paper. This year, the Hitching Post converted to full color for the first time and set a record for length with a 32-page issue.

“This year’s paper has probably been the best they’ve seen in a very long time,” said Nguyen, who sacrificed taking calculus so she could continue journalism her senior year.

When Nguyen came to America at the age of 7 , she never imagined she would oversee an English language newspaper. Her parents, who fled Vietnam in the early 1980s, raised her in France. When she crossed the Atlantic, she said, the only words she knew were “banana” and “walk.”

Nguyen had the will to excel, though — and no one can stress that more than her journalism advisor, Tim Postiff, who watched the Hitching Post expand under her leadership.

“It became more oriented toward the school and activities that students were engaged in,” he said. “We ran into some printing costs, but what are you going to do?”

JUAN ARELLANO WANTS TO APPLY TO MEDICAL SCHOOLIt didn’t take Juan Arellano long to realize he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up. The summer after eighth grade, he was already well on his way there.

The Costa Mesa resident, who has a number of cousins in the medical profession, began volunteering at the Laguna Beach Community Clinic — where his mother got treatment for diabetes — at the age of 13. Two years later, he attended a summer medical conference in Arizona hosted by the National Youth Leadership Forum. The next year, he went again.

This fall, he’ll begin pursuing his studies year-round at UC San Diego, where he plans to major in biology before applying to medical school. His ultimate goal, he said, is to work in rehabilitation.

At the National Youth Leadership Forum conferences, Arellano practiced giving blood-pressure tests and suturing wounds; he also listened to AIDS sufferers talk about their lives. He’s learned, in the process, he’s not the squeamish type.

“You have to see the dark side of medicine, the truth,” Arellano, 17, said. “You see what doctors really have to go through.”

SCHOOL STATS

VALEDICTORIANS: Emily Cotton, Mitch Friedmann, Linh Hoang, Hang Le, Dao Nguyen, Emil Sinajon

PROM KING AND QUEEN: Francisco Estrada and Diana Le

HOMECOMING KING AND QUEEN: Cody Waldron and Sarah Grabarsky

AVERAGE GPA FOR SENIOR CLASS: not provided

PERCENT OF SENIORS GOING TO COLLEGE: not provided

To see more photos of students profiled, click here.