A Team Of Valedictorians Nineteen Students Graduate From Shadle Park With Perfect Grade Point Averages
Right up front, Principal Mike Dunn assures people it’s not grade inflation that blessed Shadle Park High School with 19 valedictorians.
“Which one of these kids doesn’t deserve this?” he challenges.
Shadle has enough valedictorians to field a football team and two string quartets. They are 5 percent of the graduating seniors.
Six young men and 13 young women made it through the first seven semesters of high school with perfect grade point averages.
Together they earned $416,675 in scholarships and grants. Jeremy Wynne, for example, received an annual $8,000 merit award from Whitworth College.
“That’s why I did this 4.0 thing. I need the money,” he jokes.
“And don’t forget the free food,” chimes in Nathaniel Hager, a tall redhead whose tennis shoes are marked with a big “L” and “R” ostensibly to remind him which one goes on which foot.
“Every time we turn around we’re going to a banquet,” Wynne agrees.
Instead of a speech, the valedictorians will take turns reading a 19-stanza poem at today’s commencement exercises at 8 p.m. at the Opera House.
The poem will have the audience’s heads swiveling. Lori Haffner starts the poem from a podium on the left side of the stage, Joann Chasse takes the next stanza from the right side, Steve Schaber takes the third stanza, and so on.
The poem by valedictorians Carrie Field, Jennifer Beyersdorf, Michelle Jones and Kelly Bartleson reads like it was written by a committee.
Shadle’s English teachers tonight may grimace at the first stanza’s ending preposition:
Now that we’re facing the close of our senior year
We wanted to reminisce with you
About some highlights from our high school career
And the many others that we are now looking forward to.
The valedictorians realize their sheer numbers raise eyebrows.
Shadle parents brought up the issue at a parents advisory committee meeting. They had heard parents from another school asking pointedly, “What’s happened to standards?”
The students themselves joke about easy A’s.
“But we know that’s not true. We had to work hard to get here,” says valedictorian Wendy Howson.
Four of the valedictorians made their grades despite taking all advanced-level classes, says Jennifer Beyersdorf, whose sister Michelle was valedictorian in 1989 and whose sister Brenda missed it in 1992 because she got a B in sophomore chemistry.
For careers, they’re interested in police work (Haffner), teaching (Angie Anderson), medicine (Jeremy Scarpelli), journalism (Hager), research science (Angela Vilhauer) and physical therapy (Bartleson).
Tamara Mobbs already has college credits through the Running Start program. Carina Lohr isn’t going to college; she’ll work and devote herself to her Jehovah’s Witness mission work.
Kelly Grant, Christiaan Ross and Brett Corigliano aren’t sure what they want to do.
“I’m going to have fun for two years before I get serious,” says Howson, who will attend Western Washington University. Her best friend, valedictorian Camille Huff, will major in education and keep Howson “in line.”
Tonight is theirs.
So please do not become too sad
As we begin to leave.
Instead remember these times we’ve had
And all that we will achieve!
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color photos