Hope is high for Providence grads
As 111 of the graduating seniors of Providence High School took the stage at the graduation ceremony held in the Hall of Liberty at Forest Lawn Cemetery on Tuesday, one of their classmates was notably missing.
Instead of being there on the culminating day of her four-year journey to receive her diploma, Olivia Menke was at UCLA Medical Center recovering from a brain injury she suffered Saturday when a Los Angeles County fire truck collided with the car she was traveling in near Malibu.
PHOTOS: Providence High graduation ceremony dedicated to recovering salutatorian
She was there in spirit, though, with classmates wearing purple ribbons in her honor and buttons featuring her photo. Video of the ceremony, which was dedicated to her, was also streamed live to her hospital room, where she is under sedation until the swelling in her brain subsides.
“They’re saying there’s a good shot for a full recovery,” said Kyle Menke, her father.
Joe Sciuto, head of school at Providence, said her doctors are amazed with her fight to live, which might not be a surprise for those who knew her as a focused and driven young woman.
Kerry Martin, the school’s dean of studies, said Olivia Menke was a “force to be reckoned with” — not only president of the Associated Student Body and salutatorian with a grade-point average of 4.43, but also a recipient of the Mother Joseph Award, which is given to students who live with the values of the first provincial superior of the Sisters of Providence in the West.
As her brother Grant, a junior at the school, received the Mother Joseph Award on her behalf, the audience gave a standing ovation.
Senior Justine Caedo was the class speaker and joked about how good-looking the class was compared to their 14-year-old selves with bowl cuts and clumped mascara, but she also encouraged them to look toward the future.
“Let’s get out there and leave our legacy,” Caedo said.
Pamela Ortego, who is headed for the University of Rochester in the fall, was named the class valedictorian with a grade-point average of 4.56 and a host of achievements, including selection as a Yale Young Global Scholar in 2014.
Meghan Mai, who will attend Mount Saint Mary’s University, won the Christian Service Award. The 2014 Providence High School Spirit Award went to Maia Gaboian, who will attend Los Angeles Valley College.
It’s their spirit that will, in part, be a lasting testament of the graduating class, said Principal Allison Castro, but she challenged the students to consider what their true legacy would be.
Castro read a line from a poem called “The Dash,” by Linda Ellis, about the punctuation mark between the birth year and death year on tombstones that represents a person’s whole life.
“For it matters not, how much we own, the cars, the house, the cash,” she said. “What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash.”