Magali Ferare knew that she was pretty bright, but she didn’t
expect to be San Benito High School’s 2006 Valedictorian.
Magali Ferare: SBHS Valedictorian
Magali Ferare knew that she was pretty bright, but she didn’t expect to be San Benito High School’s 2006 Valedictorian.
“I told myself early on that I didn’t want to be one of those kids who plans out their lives for the next four years, just so they can be valedictorian,” she said. “But there’s a lot of people who do, so I was surprised when I found out it was me.”
Ferare was already a jet-setter by the time her family settled in Hollister. Born in France, she spent most of her early years in the small town of Downingtown, Pennsylvania.
“You think Hollister sucks? Downingtown is so much worse,” she said. “At least here we can say we have the biker rally. The best thing you can say in Downingtown is that they filmed Viva La Bam 20 miles away.”
Her father wanted to move to California for business reasons and the family settled in Hollister. Ferare shuffled between area schools for a few years, looking for an academic program that was right for her.
“I think it might have been that I just have no common sense or street smarts,” she said. “School is what I’m good at.”
High school provided some stability, however, and Ferare quickly jumped into SBHS student life. Over the past four years she has not only thrived in rigorous honors and Advanced Placement coursework, she has also been extensively involved in the 4-H, Academic Decathlon, Relay for Life, San Benito Stage Company and school French, Drama, Scholarship, Yearbook and Economic Clubs.
“I feel I’ve done a lot of work not just for the school, but I’ve tried to put myself out there in my community and do some good as well,” she said. “So I think that being named Valedictorian was an acknowledgment of that, and it felt pretty damn good.”
She wasn’t just handed the title, however. Competition among the top ten or so students for the honor of being the Class of 2006’s Valedictorian was fierce, and the students would constantly check up on each other’s grades.
“It would get pretty cutthroat,” said Ferare. “But after school we’d all get ice cream together and joke about hating each other.”
Ferare will be attending Stanford University next year, which she describes as her “dream school,” where she will study International Relations and then plans to attend law school.
“I want to do corporate legal advising one day,” she said. “Because I think it would be interesting and stable.”
When she isn’t hitting the books, Ferare enjoys computers and music, or going out with her friends.
“Dollar-Scoop Tuesday is a high schooler’s dream,” she jokes about a Baskin Robbin’s promotion.”
Though her four years at SBHS have been anything but relaxing, Ferare says she will miss her alma mater and friends terribly.
“High school may not be the best years of your life,” she said. “But still, they’re four pretty good years. I hope everybody can appreciate that.”
Tausha Clayton: San Andreas
n By Danielle Smith Staff Writer
Some students may take their high school diploma for granted, but for San Andreas graduate Tausha Clayton and many of her peers, knowledge and the satisfaction of a job well done are too precious commodities to waste.
“There were days I didn’t think I would graduate at all,” she said.
Clayton, 17, is accustomed to not taking the easy way out. When she was only 2-years-old, she was removed from her birth mother’s home and adopted by Hollister natives Kim and Darrell.
While most of her early education was uneventful, Clayton began having difficulty when she entered her freshman year at San Benito High School. It was hard for her to keep up academically and she frequently had problems getting along with her classmates’ “drama,” as she put it.
“If you had a problem with somebody’s friend, then thirty other people who had nothing to do with it hated you,” she said. “It was really bad.”
The final straw came junior year for Clayton, when she says a teacher read one of her papers out loud to the class as an example of poor work.
“He told me I would be one of the lucky ones if I graduated at all,” she said. “… I cried right there.”
Clayton asked her counselor if she could transfer to San Andreas, but was advised against it. San Andreas is designed to give students who are not thriving in a large, conventional high school setting an opportunity to thrive in a more personal environment. Frustrated, she stopped going to school until she received the transfer.
“I knew they would eventually have to let me go if I wanted,” she said.
Though she herself had requested the switch, she was still nervous during her first few days at San Andreas.
“I just figured it was a school for bad kids,” she said. “I felt horrible.”
Quickly, however, Clayton made friends among her small class of only around 70 students, and was surprised by the rigor of her classwork.
“Everybody thinks we don’t do any work because we only go half a day,” she said. “But I worked harder at San Andreas than I ever did at the high school. I was turning in an essay every week.”
Clayton says one of her biggest problems during high school was confronting the negative stereotypes people sometimes held about San Andreas students.
“I still had a few friends from the high school who told me ‘You should come back here so your diploma will mean something,'” she said. “But it does mean something. It doesn’t say ‘Continuation School’ on it or anything like that.”
When graduation day finally rolled around, Clayton was on of a handful of students who chose to speak.
“I felt like it was a miracle, and it was a huge weight off my chest,” she said. “… I wanted everyone to know what was on my mind and thank everybody for what they’ve done for me.”
Clayton plans to go into the job corps, and hopes to work in a medical or dental office.
“I’m really a people person, I want to work where I can talk to them,” she said.
Though Clayton says she will miss high school, she is looking forward to independence and plans on staying in touch with many of her school friends.
“I have phone numbers for like, half the school,” she said. “We’re all very close.”
Danielle Smith covers education for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or [email protected]
