seniors 2011: valencia high school & century high school

Seniors2011

Valencia High School

CenturyHigh School

News-BulletinVALENCIA COUNTY

MAY 7, 2011

By Julia M. DenDingerNews-Bulletin Staff [email protected]

The eight of them chatter and banter like the old friends they are. Over the last four years, they have watched each over morph from awkward freshmen into confident seniors. With solid plans for the future in hand, the top graduates of Valencia High School’s Class of 2011 are ready to take their academic excellence to the next level.

As they go around the table, naming which college they will be headed off to next fall, possible majors and an exten-sive list of high school awards and acco-lades over the years, you get the distinct feeling they know each other as well as themselves.

Invariably someone will chime in to remind a fellow senior about an award they won — a department academic award, a letter in sports or academics or membership in an honors society.

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that,” is the laughing response.

Eight of the top 10 for this year’s grad-uating class are ready to move on, but remember where they came from.

They talk about the benefits of graduat-ing from Valencia County’s newest high school.

“Well, it is all brand new,” said Joseph Montoya. “We get to set all the new records.” Montoya plans to attend the University of New Mexico and study criminology.

Some of his accomplishments over the last four years include membership in National Honor Society, being a let-tering member of the varsity basketball team, playing on the VHS football team, receiving department academic awards in science and math, and earning gold cards for the Renaissance program.

To attain a gold card, students must have a 3.5 to 4.0 grade point average, no disciplinary referrals, fewer than four days absent per semester and no F’s.

Montoya also took advanced placement classes and participated in dual and con-current enrollment with the University of New Mexico-Valencia Campus.

Alicia Lopez said the school offers stu-dents a lot of options and opportunities.

“I’m glad I went here instead of Los Lunas (High School),” said Danielle Mascarenas. “Because there are fewer of us, we get more individual attention from the teachers.”

Both Mascarenas and Lopez will be attending UNM in the fall, majoring in nursing and civil engineering, respec-tively. Mascarenas is leaving VHS with four years of academic letters, gold cards in the Renaissance program, AP honors awards and a letter from her time as the football team’s manager.

Lopez received academic awards all

four years, participated in MESA her freshman and sophomore years, lettered three years in cross country and three years in track for pole vault, received gold cards for Renaissance and is the vice president of the high school’s National Honor Society chapter.

Both students took Advanced Placement classes and took advantage of dual and concurrent enrollment at UNM-VC.

The campus offers two kinds of dual enrollment for interested students.

The first is when students come to the campus for concurrent enrollment.

The second type, on-site enrollment, is formerly known as dual enrollment. It allows students to earn college credits for work done in the classroom. Students in on-site dual enrollment will enroll in a corresponding Web-based UNM-VC course with the high school teacher pro-viding the bulk of the instruction.

The college professor will provide supplemental instructional material, require additional assignments and/or examinations and will personally meet with students at the high school site on at least four occasions.

Most of these top achievers participated in the concurrent and on-site enrollment programs at UNM-VC. And it’s a route they strongly suggest other students take.

“Oh it’s great,” Montoya said. “You save a lot of time and money.” Lopez said she has already completed several core classes for her degree, and Mascarenas has a semester of credits out of the way.

Randall Burson II, who will be attend-ing Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania to study biology and Spanish, has racked up 36 credit hours through concurrent and on-site enrollment. But he’s going to have to look at what he learned in those classes as knowledge for knowledge’s sake. None of the credits will transfer to Swarthmore.

“What? You need to talk to somebody about that,” said Rosie Simmons-Hogan. “I would be so mad if I did all that work and didn’t get the credits.”

But Burson probably won’t be too cerebrally taxed by repeating the course work. When it came time for him to run down his list of accomplishments, the rest of the seniors declared his list would easily eclipse theirs. That was followed by a lot of laughing and “help” in remem-

bering his high school career.Burson, the first chair tenor saxophone

for the VHS band, was named to the all state band twice, spent four years in honor band, was named outstanding soloist three times, was a member of the drama club, MESA, National Honor Society, has received academic awards for science, math, history, language and arts and academic letters all four years.

The competition for the top is stiff, the seniors say, but it isn’t the blood-thirsty, backstabbing kind found in bad after-school specials.

“There’s competition, but it’s not unhealthy,” Burson said.

The others agree, saying that getting to the top of the class was simply the out-come of working hard and earning good grades.

“I just worked to keep my GPA up,” said Mascarenas. Montoya commented that his main goal was all A’s.

Simmons-Hogan will be attending UNM in the fall and is leaning towards majoring in psychology. While at VHS, she earned academic letters all four years, was a member of student council,

2 • Seniors 2011: Valencia High School & Century High School • Valencia County News-Bulletin • May 7, 2011

n See Seniors, Page 12

Top Valencia High School seniors have a lot in common

Julia M. Dendinger-News-Bulletin photo

AT THE TOP of their class and ready for higher education, Valencia High School’s top students racked up the accolades and encourage underclassmen to keep working hard. Among the top 10 students for VHS, from left, are Alicia Lopez, Rosie Simmons-Hogan, Tina Zuniga, Randall Burson II, Joseph Montoya, Danielle Mascarenas, Jacqueline Alvidrez and Kenya Musegades. Not pictured are Emma Hart and Lindsey Tafoya.

May 7, 2011• Valencia County News-Bulletin • Seniors 2011: Valencia High School & Century High School • 3

Kirstyn Abeita Isaac Alaniz Sinfronio Alcachupas Cassandra Alejandro Jacqueline Alvidrez Vanessa Aragon Priscilla Arciniega Daniel Avila

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Century high sChool graduation information

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Century High School graduation will be held at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, May 11, at the school, 32 Sun Valley, in Los Lunas.


Seniors: ‘We’re good academic role models’from PAGE 2

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is the co-secretary for National Honor Society and is the NHS probation officer.

“I get people to show up for meetings,” Simmons-Hogan said.

“Yeah, you know it’s bad when Rosie is after you,” Montoya laughed.

While she hasn’t decided on a major yet, Jacqueline Alvidrez will be attending Western New Mexico University in Silver City this fall. Alvidrez earned academic letters all four years, participated in the Renaissance program, took AP classes and took part in dual and concurrent enrollment, served as a student council officer, has received several department aca-demic awards and was voted “most creative” by the senior class.

After graduation, Kenya Musegades will begin her degree in pharmacology at UNM-VC and then trans-fer to the main campus in Albuquerque. Musegades has received academic letters as well as a band let-ter for her work as a flautist, received an academic department award in U.S. history, is president of drama club, was public relations officer of student council, was named all-state for small state band, was named solo and ensemble best of day in flute, was in the honor band and received gold cards in Renaissance.

Tina Zuniga will be attending Fort Lewis College in Durango and majoring in English. Zuniga is the student council president this year as well as the yearbook editor. She is a member of National Honors Society, played volleyball and was a cheerleader, as well as the recipient of academic letters each year.

Also in the top 10 students are Emma Hart and Lindsey Tafoya.

According to her classmates, Hart will be attending the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania as a biolo-gy and exercise-science major, which is the beginning of her pre-med academic track. Her accomplishments include four years of varsity basketball and athletic letters, as well as student council, National Honor Society and gold cards for four years of Renaissance.

They also put their heads together to assemble an impressive dossier on Tafoya — student council mem-ber, academic letters, department academic awards in French, Renaissance and dual and concurrent enroll-ment. While they weren’t sure which college Tafoya had chosen, her classmates said she is planning to go into nuclear engineering.

“I think Emma is a good role model overall,” said Simmons-Hogan. “We’re good academic role models.”

As they leave the underclassmen to fend for them-selves, the top seniors do have some advice.

Mimicking a successful Nike ad campaign she prob-ably isn’t old enough to remember, Mascarenas says the key to academic success is for students to, “Just do the work.”

“It’s worth it,” Simmons-Hogan adds.“It’s why I’m here,” Montoya said. “It’s not that

hard. Just do the work.”Zuniga advised those coming after to join in the

many activities offered at VHS and participate in everything they can.

But most important, Lopez said, is “Enjoy your time here.”

Graduation: 7 p.m., Thursday, May 12,at the Valencia High School

football field

Class song:

“Don’t Stop Believing”

by Journey

Class flower:

Amaryllis

Class motto:

“Hakuna matata.”

Class colors:

Red, turquoise and silver

vhs graduation info

seniors 2011: valencia high school & century high school

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