As rain began to sprinkle down Thursday on the guests of Castaic High School’s newest graduating class inside College of the Canyons’ Cougar Stadium, a video played throughout on a massive screen.
Over and over again, the video played the graduates writing a message that appeared to be a prompt on the screen.
Many of the signatures weren’t legible; others left their names and a clear message; but by the end of the evening, it was clear how the campus had left its mark on the 255 William S. Hart Union High School District graduates, and vice-versa.
Another sign of the relatively young campus, which hosted its first day of school in August 2019, the high school’s fourth graduating class celebrated milestones and claims on campus history they hope can inspire future generations to come.
A record number of students taking AP exams to earn college credit. The baseball program’s earning the school’s first-ever Foothill League title. The first Coyote to be appointed to the U.S. Air Force Academy.
During one of the lighter moments, Principal Ben Wobrock, who took the helm last year, even credited the seniors for calmly dealing with his “concerned neighbors,” during the execution of a 3:30 a.m. senior prank on his lawn.
“The point is, you step into challenges instead of avoiding them — that is courage. As you leave Castaic High School, the world will not ask whether you are perfect. It will ask whether you are willing to try — to lead, to persevere and to stand up for what is right,” Wobrock said. “So, I implore you, have the courage to pursue your training, even when others doubt you.”
Azul Mancilla-Baez’s poem “Almost” shared a pensive, melancholic look at how high school can almost always feel like one day after another, until it’s almost no longer there, leaving one to realize how impactful the experiences were.
“We made it through everything that some of us thought we would, and now we’re standing here, not at the end, but at something we didn’t fully understand until now, because it was never just about finishing school,” she told the crowd, becoming emotional. “It was about everything we became while we were here, and now we leave it behind — not as something we’re losing, but it’s something that became part of us, and we take that with us through the last time we gather all at once into whatever comes next, where ‘almost’ becomes a distant memory and entirely leads us into the future.”
Graduating senior Andre Morales, who recalled sitting in the bleachers three years earlier for his brother’s graduation, talked about the legacy one inherits and the one they will leave behind, in discussing the answer to, “What it means to be a Coyote,” during his poem.
“And as we leave these classrooms and these halls, let us continue to mark the walls; for the world we step into next, is waiting for us to heed its call,” he said. “So, now I implore you all, go and show everyone what it means to have attended this school, to have worn these colors, to have been and continue to be a Coyote.”
Claire Angles, Castaic’s student body president and the campus’ first student representative on the Hart district’s governing board, literally passed the torch to the following year’s ASB president, as a symbolic gesture for next year’s graduates.
“As we prepare for whatever set of decisions wait ahead, we are not letting our legacy float away. Instead, we are passing the light of the pack onto the junior class, who will soon carry it forward,” Angles said before making the gesture. “To these students, remember, you each have an opportunity to leave a mark on the lives of others. I hope that whatever set of decisions you make, you cherish the people around you.”
