Graduation is a time of reflection, looking ahead for Hoover High
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Approximately 390 Herbert Hoover High School seniors gathered on Ferguson Field Wednesday evening for one last hurrah and send-off before they embark on the rest of their lives.
Many seniors, including Sani Ghahremanians, outgoing president of the school’s Associated Student Body, said during the ceremony that graduation should be a time of reflection.
“Take a moment and look around you,” she said. “We’ve all grown up together the last four years. We’ve all invested so much of our time into Hoover. The sad thing is we’re not going to see each other anymore. There’s some people we’ll never see again.”
After the ceremony, senior Manuel Garamanoukian said he’s enrolled at UC Merced in the fall and plans to major in business economics and administration. He said one of his favorite memories was reaching All-State with the school’s marching band.
“I want to become a surgeon in a third-world country,” said Cynthia Blanco, who has applied to Santa Monica College, and aims to transfer to a four-year university. One of her best experiences was placing fifth out of 23 teams at cheerleading nationals in Anaheim.
Senior Courtney Bolin said she plans to work for a while and then apply to Glendale Community College within the year. Baking and cosmetics are her favorite interests.
It was Glendale Unified School District Supt. Dick Sheehan’s final Hoover graduation. Just days ago, he accepted the top job with the Covina-Valley Unified School District.
“We wish you nothing but the best success in the world, no matter the path,” he told the Class of 2015.
Board of Education President Greg Krikorian said the class “embodies everything America is made of,” and he highlighted the upcoming Fourth of July as a time to remember the men and women who have served the country in the military.
Valedictorian Meagan Yuen brought a sea of laughter from the audience when she began her speech by calling the Class of 2015 outstanding, and then asked her classmates to all stand up.
“Now we’re all out standing,” she said.
Hoover High School gave the new graduates “almost everything” to survive in the real world, Yuen noted, adding that it’s about learning how to learn that captures the academic experience.
“I’ve had a lot of classes here — calculus, physics — and I’ve silently been asking ‘when the heck am I ever going to use this in real life?’ It’s a fair question,” Yuen said. “Some of us have no idea what we’re doing after today, and that’s OK. It becomes our responsibility to teach ourselves. At Hoover, we’ve learned to take every opportunity that comes our way.”
Matt Sanderson is a freelance writer.