Foothill seniors and their families gathered into the Buena High School Auditorium on Monday for the annual Senior Awards Night. This year’s special theme was a play off of Lewis Carroll’s novel, “Alice in Wonderland.”
Seniors were honored for achievements and special distinctions made over the last four years of their high school career.
Many students were awarded scholarship money from different organizations as well as honors in the Dragon Hall of Fame for specific areas of study.
Teachers awarded students with graduation cords, pins, and stoles for ceremonies next week. This year, Foothill had twice as many students earn titles of summa and magna cum laude than last years class.
Seniors were pleased with their academic achievements.
“I am going to have five cords!” cried senior Karen Fox in excitement as she walked off stage after receiving her Communications Academy cord.
Exemplary honors of Scholar Male and Female Athlete were awarded to Michael Raftery and Alex Cabral. {sidebar id=26}
“The epitome of scholar, this young man has a cumulative GPA of a 4.7, so I would like to honor Michael Raftery,” announced Assistant Principal Peggy Kroener.
After the scholar athletes were awarded, the Best All Around Male and Female awards were presented to Sam O’ Donnell and Jackie Kroll.
Students were anxiously whispering one another trying to guess the winner just moments before being announced.
“It’s either Jim [James Bern] or Sam,” commented Jay Campbell.
The audience erupted into applause when the names were announced.
However, last night was not just for students to be recognized.
Teachers Melanie “Captain” Lindsey, dressed as the Queen of Hearts, Justin Frazier as the Mad Hatter and Heather Ferris as Alice honored Wendi Butler, Cathy Gaspard, and Kroener for their work at Foothill as all three will be leaving next year.
Butler will head to Cate School in Carpinteria, Gaspard will pursue doctoral studies at UCSB, and Kroener will become the principal of Cabrillo Middle School.
Assistant Principal La Sonja Brown was also congratulated on earning her doctorate degree in education.
At the end of the night, senior Lizet Ruvalcaba won a raffle and was awarded a brand new Lenovo laptop. Ruvalcaba gave Principal Joe Bova a hug when she was handed her prize.
