Graduation Ceremonies Weather Cloudbursts : Education: Camarillo High School moves indoors for commencement; controversy marks Oxnard’s event.

The skies were gray and sodden, the football fields were soaked. Still, it seemed many Ventura County high school seniors and school officials were unable to accept Friday that it was actually raining on graduation day.

“We’re not ready for something like this,” said Hueneme High School math teacher Bob Callis, shaking his head as he held an umbrella. Nearby, a crew of six workers raced feverishly to squeegee water off 400 seats before the Class of 1995 filed in to fill them.

“It just doesn’t rain in June,” Callis said unconvincingly as puddles began forming around him. “It just doesn’t rain in June.”

Wrong, Bob. It does rain in June. Just not very often in Southern California. A school official estimated that the last time it rained on June 16 was 71 years ago.

Amid this unseasonal bluster, about 2,200 seniors graduated from six public high school in western Ventura County on Friday in ceremonies a little more memorable than planned.

Oxnard High School--which was bidding farewell to its 75th and last graduating class from its Fifth Street campus--braved the elements and kept its commencement outdoors. So did Hueneme, Channel Islands, Rio Mesa and Santa Paula high schools.

But Camarillo High School moved its ceremony inside the school gymnasium. And because the gym could not hold as many people as the outdoor stadium, the school decided at the last minute to hold two separate ceremonies, dividing the seniors up for commencements at 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.

“There was really nothing they could do,” said Bill Studt, superintendent of the Oxnard Union High School District, which includes Camarillo. “Their field was too muddy and the cement stands were too slippery. It would have been too dangerous to hold it outdoors.”

A light but steady rain was falling as Oxnard High’s 350 graduating seniors marched onto the wet field to take their seats. Principal Dorothy Tatum did not waste time pointing out the historic nature of the event.

“Today is an historic moment because we have not had rain on this day in 71 years,” Tatum said, as a boisterous umbrella-toting crowd cheered. “It is also an historic moment because this is the last class that will ever graduate from this site.”

Just then, the first of seven small airplanes that would interrupt the 90-minute event flew over the football field. The Fifth Street campus is closing this summer because of the danger posed to students by those low-flying aircraft from nearby Oxnard Airport.

Starting this fall, Oxnard High students will attend a gleaming new $53-million replacement campus that is nearly finished on Gonzales Road. That new campus became the focus of a surprisingly bitter attack on Oxnard High officials by Senior Class President Jory Harfouche.

In a speech that stunned the crowd into silence, Jory suggested that Tatum and other school administrators were so focused on the Gonzales Road campus that they overlooked their senior class.

“Funds that would have gone for our use have been saved to be used for the new school,” Jory said. “Our teachers have packed up their educational materials before we have been done with them, so they would be ready to go to the new school. Our principal has not attended one of the Class of 1995 graduation activities until today’s ceremonies.”

After the commencement, Tatum said she believed Jory was just expressing disappointment at not being able to attend the new school. District administrators had originally planned for the Class of 1995 to be the first graduating class at the new school, but construction delays changed that.

“She had some concerns and she pretty much summed them up,” Tatum said.

The rest of the ceremony went off without a hitch. And by the time the commencement was over, the sun had broken through and the field was drying. After leaving the stadium, Chanise Clark, 18, hugged a friend, Da’net Young.

“We made it! We made it! We made it to the end!” Chanise shouted exuberantly.

And their first order of business as new graduates?

“We’re going to party,” Da’net said with a grin.