Leaving one classroom, moving on to the next
By Sylvie Belmond/Special To The Malibu Times
Enjoying the present as they let go of the past and stepping on into young adulthood, Malibu High School’s seventh graduating class beamed with anticipation on June 20, graduation day.
The students glowed with pride and excitement as they waited to receive their diplomas for completing 12 years of education.
The amphitheater at Malibu High was packed to capacity with emotional parents, family members and friends who came to celebrate this right of passage with the 200 or so graduates.
At the commencement ceremony last Thursday, Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy addressed the students.
“Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will always be a Malibu High grad and make us proud,” he said.
Sally Smith, a presenter of the Class of 2002 and a graduating senior, was quite emotional and a little sick from indigestion as she gathered her strength to speak.
“We are lucky. We went to Malibu High, steps away from world famous Zuma Beach. Yet, like most senior classes, we were like a woman singing the blues,” she said, “often on the verge of a breakdown.”
“Yet paradise is not where you go, but how you live your life,” she continued. “Like now, remember how lucky you are to be alive. Cherish the memories and be thankful for what you’ve got.”
Humor and thankfulness were definitively part of the occasion as the student speakers made fun of the trials and tribulations of their final high school year, yet realizing how fortunate they are.
“We have pushed the limits and aggravated the administration,” joked Jaime Payne, student body president.
“But we also experienced the greatest tragedy of our times,” she said, referring to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
MHS principal Mike Matthews said to the young adults, “This is a class that highly values individualism and that is what this country stands for and we should celebrate that.”
Then, joking about the choice of the banana as a mascot for the senior class, Matthews prompted the faculty to raise a toast to the graduating students, bananas in hand.
Before the ceremony began, Dusty Peak sat on the grass in the still empty amphitheater and talked about the occasion and what it meant to him as a parent. His first son, Skylar, was graduating.
“It feels like you’re leaving one classroom and moving on to the next as a parent,” he said, noting that, like most of his peers, Skylar will go on to college in the fall.
But, “the toughest part is to have him understand that now, he is an adult with responsibilities,” Peak said.