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Hassles Turn to Tassels; Youths Reclaim Lives

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

When high school valedictorian Chasitie Lambert broke down in tears Saturday during a graduation ceremony, her teacher, Sam Douglas, wept along with her.

Lambert, 16, was one of more than 190 youths who earned a high school diploma the hard way--after being arrested, placed in juvenile detention and referred by the county probation office to one of 200 high schools and agencies for juvenile offenders.

Saturday, a ceremony was held in the John Anson Ford Amphitheater in Hollywood for this group of youthful ex-gang members, drug addicts, car thieves and runaways who transformed themselves into high school graduates with a future.

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“They are the strong, you know,” said Inglewood Superintendent of Schools George McKenna. “They have come from a longer way to get their diplomas.”

Proud parents who at times doubted their children would ever get out of trouble, let alone graduate from high school, beamed as they watched them parade past in robes, caps and gowns, just like thousands of other June high school graduates.

But these were graduates with a difference, graduates whose stories parallel Lambert’s.

Arrested at 12 for assault and battery and driving a stolen car, Lambert spent time in Juvenile Hall. Afterward, she ran away from home and lived two years in an Inglewood youth-placement residence before running away from it, too.

Finally, she met Douglas, 46, a teacher at Santa Monica Community Day Center, with whom she warred for two years before changes took hold.

“You’re a beautiful man, Sam,” Lambert said during her valedictorian speech, her voice shaking with emotion.

“I can’t repay you for all you’ve done for me, all those times you stayed on my back--and I hated it,” she said, weeping. “I will always carry you around in my heart.”

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Many in the audience also wept. McKenna told the crowd, “If your heart wasn’t touched when the young lady talked about Sam Douglas, then you don’t have a heart.”

“By the way,” McKenna added, “who in the world is Sam Douglas, anyway?”

A short, gray-haired man with a silver earring stood up and received a round of applause.

After the ceremony, he said he broke down when Lambert spoke.

“I didn’t do anything that a lot of other teachers don’t do,” Douglas said. “Chasitie worked hard. She wasn’t kidding about making changes in her life.”

For many other graduates, it was the same story.

Michael Duhart, 18, was sentenced to six months at a youth camp after he dropped out of school, began fights with others and stayed out all night.

“This program helped me a lot,” Duhart said. “I wouldn’t have ever gotten my high school diploma because I wasn’t even going to school.”

Duhart said he has two college scholarships and hopes to become a professional singer.

For 19-year-old Jessica Meglone, a former runaway, car thief and drug user, the transformation began when she became pregnant.

“I just thought the life that I had led, I didn’t want him to go through that,” Meglone said, as she held onto her year-old son, Joshua. Meglone hopes to return to Santa Monica College in the fall.

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