Washington Voices

Solomon Shanko, 18, landed in Spokane in August 2007 after a 28-hour flight from his native Ethiopia. His mom had moved to the United States in 2002 – while Shanko stayed behind with his father, a sister and a brother. Today, Shanko’s siblings also live here, but his dad is still in Ethiopia. “He watches out for my grandparents; they are blind,” Shanko said, sitting in the library at Ferris High School. “And he works at the hospital. He was a nurse, then he went to university for two years, and now he’s between a doctor and a nurse.”

When you ask Kaila Hilde what she wants in life, her answer is simple and direct – it’s her desire to be able to work for the things she wants and needs and for the economy to improve enough so she can find a job. She’s been looking hard, but she hasn’t been finding. Sure, she has longer-term goals, but the economic realities of life loom large for this 18-year-old Riverside High School graduate, who neither hides the details of the hardscrabble life she has had nor puts it out there to garner sympathy.

Not all teens learn best while sitting at desks during a traditional six-hour school day. Haylah Alkumeidy is one of them. When she transferred to M.E.A.D. (Mead Education Alternative Division) after her sophomore year, she was depressed, withdrawn and failing all her classes. “At the time, I didn’t know how to learn,” she said. “Sitting down for six hours wasn’t working. I felt frustrated. I felt like an idiot.”

Shadle Park High School’s Chase Anderson is a young man of easy intelligence who had to figure out some grown-up things very early in life. With a mother who has been in and out of jail since he was a boy and a father who has been gone for much of his life, Anderson, 17, found himself moving back and forth between grandparents.

Jacob Sabata says the most challenging thing about high school has been “making new friends and keeping up with my work at the same time.” It’s a balancing act many teens can relate to, but Sabata has had other challenges as well. Teacher Randy Mickelsen said, “Jacob has CP (cerebral palsy). He struggles with speaking, and ambulating is a bit difficult.” Yet according to Mickelsen, Sabata is one of the most active and involved leadership students he has. The 19-year-old senior maintains a 3.9 g.p.a. and is a member of the National Honor Society. Last year he started a Key Club (Kiwanis International High School Program) at the school. “He volunteers for everything,” Mickelsen said. “He’s smarter and more on top of it than most of the students here.”

Work hard. Play hard. Central Valley High School senior Tyler Johnson knows both. An academic achiever who also plays major junior hockey for the Spokane Chiefs, Johnson will be among the 405 seniors graduating Saturday from CVHS during a ceremony in a venue he’s very familiar with: the Spokane Arena.

Brandon Leliefeld, 18, sits in the cafeteria of Deer Park High School on a Tuesday after school. Blue-eyed and already a little sunburned, he’s watching his friends leave in the dusty wind outside. Leliefeld is Deer Park High School’s notable student of the year and he’s just a tiny bit shy talking about that.