El Modena High
3920 E. Spring St.
Orange 92869-3599
(714) 997-6331
* Enrollment: 1,950
* Established: 1966
* Team name: Vanguards
* Principal: Nancy Murray
* Student president: Justin Freimann
* Valedictorian: Wendy Hsu
* Winning moments: School Arts Academy; National Art Education Assn.’s Teacher of the Year Donna Banning; district Teacher of the Year Jim Veit; Young Artists competition winner Shannon MacMillan; girls’ basketball playoffs; girls’ soccer playoffs; postseason wrestling tournament
* In the works: Remodel cafeteria and drama production stage; classroom Internet wiring; Advancement Via Individual Determination program
* Graduation: 6:30 p.m. June 15 at the stadium
SENIOR STANDOUT
Therese Mascardo of Orange
* Achievements: Earned a 4.3 weighted grade-point average; Golden State exams honors in writing, U.S. history and algebra; named Academic Decathlon captain; Associate Student Body vice president; Mock Trial captain; National Honor Society president; Southern California representative at National Leadership Forum; Kiwanis Student Leader of Tomorrow; Honor roll; On Track Youth Mentoring president; varsity tennis captain; SITE Council parliamentarian; Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan publicist; National Art Honor Society; California Scholarship Federation; received Rotary International of Orange scholarship; Tennis Secret Sis program founder; taught “Reaching Out to Invisible Kids” seminar at California Assn. of Student Council; speaks “pig Latin (igpay atinlay)”
* Connections: Member of the Orange County Japanese American Lawyers Assn.; Soroptomist International; Key Club; Girls’ League; Asian, Earth, photo and martial arts clubs; Art Council; volunteered 800 hours at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange; Second Harvest Food Bank; La Purisima Catholic Church; beach clean-ups; Impact: Students Making a Difference; worked as a cosmetics saleswoman for True Colors by Estey Int.; cashier and server at Everfresh Cafe
* Ambitions: Attend Boston University as Dean’s scholar to become a medical doctor specializing in obstetrics or pediatrics; first female minority U.S. president; improve international relations; stop hunger; assist in finding cure for cancer; end intolerance
* Family: Father is Benjamin; mother is Olivia; brothers are Gerald and Joseph
* Philosophy: “I live by this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: ‘To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.’ ”
THE SENIOR CLASS: 357
