She Kept Her Marriage Vow to the Students

Cathy Fernandez originally envisioned a small backyard wedding.

Instead, her nuptials resembled a pep rally, with almost 2,000 Orange High School students witnessing her big moment Friday. They applauded and cheered wildly as she walked down the long concrete center aisle of the school’s outdoor theater.

Girls wiped away tears and sniffled as vows were exchanged, while other students furtively passed yearbooks around for signing. They hooted and whistled when the groom, Steve Scherbarth, kissed the bride, a secretary at the school. But everyone agreed it was quite a way to cap off the school’s successful fund-raising drive.

Back in March, Fernandez vowed that if students gathered $10,000 as part of a national fund-raiser for pediatric leukemia research, she would get married right there on campus. More than 1 million pennies later, she was a gleeful, blushing bride.

Fernandez was following the lead of Principal Robert Lewis, who promised students that if they raised $5,000 in pennies he would serve them in the lunch line. Lewis was soon dishing out hamburgers.

“I never expected thousands of people at my wedding!” said Fernandez, 38, after the noontime ceremony. “But it was for a good cause, and it’s something the kids will never forget.”

It was a unique scene. The bride wore a clingy, floor-length ivory gown and a crown of delicate pink roses on her head. The groom donned beige jeans, cowboy boots and a Tasmanian Devil necktie.

They married in front of a mural bearing the school mascot, a panther. Students from the floral design class provided the flower arrangements, and the 21-member school choir, dressed to the nines in tuxedos and evening gowns, sang before the ceremony.

“I was a little bit leery when Cathy first told me about the wedding,” said her mother, Terri Gate. “But it was a fantastic ceremony. Very different. It was beautiful.”

The marriage was the second for both Fernandez and Scherbarth, 42. They met at a church group for divorced parents. Fernandez’s 19-year-old son, Jason, gave the bride away, and daughter Keri, 14, was a bridesmaid.

The couple will honeymoon this summer but are taking a weekend escape to Running Springs.

“I have to be back at work on Monday!” Fernandez said. “It’s a busy time. Graduation is coming soon.”

After the ceremony, the newlyweds were whisked away on a golf cart festooned with white streamers. Students cheered and waved while eating their lunches.

“It was really romantic,” Mindy Rodriguez and Jamie Robinson, both 15, said in unison.

“It was so special because it happened here at school, and we got to be a part of it,” Rodriguez said. “I’ll always remember it.”

Others weren’t so sentimental.

“It was a little depressing, with all those people crying,” said Stephen Wright, 15.

But buddy Philip White, 17, saw the benefits of the wedding.

“I liked it because we got to get out of class,” he said.