Over 300 students marched onto the Santa Paula High School football field Thursday for the Isbell Middle School promotion ceremonies.

Isbell Middle School promotes over 300 students

June 23, 2010
Santa Paula News

Over 300 students marched onto the Santa Paula High School football field Thursday for the Isbell Middle School promotion ceremonies. Isbell Principal Dr. Laura Rynott welcomed everyone to the ceremony and had some thoughtful words for the students.

She told them that they are advancing to high school, “but this is not the end of your journey. At the end of high school you will have a commencement…. That will be the beginning of the next leg of your journey. But even at the end of college, the journey does not have to end. Learning is a lifelong experience, whether it is in the classroom or on the job. Never stop learning, never stop achieving.”

Daniel Desales, the Doug Stewart award winner, told his fellow students, “We have all grown so much and accomplished many things, even if it was learning the quadratic formula or learning most of the periodic table. All of us are moving on to high school and now it’s time to grow up even more.” He also thanked his family, friends and the Isbell staff for helping him to get where he is today.

Anais Olivares was the Elizabeth Ramsay award winner. “The past three years I’ve spent at Isbell have been a unique experience,” she said. “Three years have gone by so fast. Like Dr. Seuss once said, ‘I’m glad we had times together just to laugh. It seems like we just got started. And then before you know it, the times we all had together were gone.’”

Anais said, “What we have accomplished these three years shall not be the last of our accomplishments, but the beginning. Anything is possible; however we must work hard to achieve our goals.”

Co-Valedictorian Zoe Appleby quoted poet William Ernest Henley, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” She then added her own remarks: “We are all masters of our fates and captains of our souls. We can do anything. The sooner we realize this the sooner we can act upon it. It doesn’t matter where we come from or where anyone else thinks we are going. All that it takes is will and hard work.”

Zoe noted they have learned a lot at Isbell, “from language arts and math to history and science, to music and sports. We have also learned many important life lessons along the way. We can take what we have learned here and carry it into high school, through college and out into the world, helping and contributing to our society.”

She added they can achieve “amazing and impossible things. We can lead our country out of an economic crisis. We can end global hatred and war. We can learn to be better guardians of our earth, of our home. We can stop diseases and starvation. We can succeed. Years from now I hope to look around me at a world that this promoting class has shaped with our accomplishments.”

Co-Valedictorian Lisa Palencia had the final speech of the day. “Today is a very important day for us because we are closing an important chapter in our lives and tomorrow we will start a new chapter,” she said. “All of us here today have had challenges put in our way and we conquered them. We never gave up and that’s why we’re here.”

Lisa reminded her class that some of the class wasn’t promoting. “We shouldn’t give up on them,” she noted. “We should wish all of them good luck and success in high school.” She also told her classmates they should remember their accomplishments and everything that got them there.





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