Clair Bare and the guys are eager to receive their diplomas. (West Life photos by Larry Bennet)

2010 Warriors a group of fighters, student speaker says
By Kevin Kelley
Fairview Park
Published June 16, 2010

Each graduate of Fairview High School’s class of 2010 is a fighter in some way, student speaker Gabrielle Alicia Colon said during the school’s 80th commencement ceremonies June 8 at Lakewood Civic Auditorium.

“Whether it is on the field, in the classroom or in the performance hall, we never showed weakness,” she said. “We never backed down.”

Colon noted the class of 2010 saw more than its fair share of chaos as it experienced the remodeling of the high school, faculty and staff changes and even evacuations due to small fires back in the fall of 2005.

“Through each difficulty we became stronger,” she said, recounting numerous achievements the class of 2010 accomplished. “We defied the odds a countless number of times.”

Rather than one main graduation speaker, the ceremony featured several speakers.

Board of Education President Brad Lamb encouraged graduates to become involved in their community, wherever that may be in the next chapter of their lives. He described commencement as the “pay day” for school leaders because they get to see the students’ hard work pay off as they get their diplomas.

The 150 members of the Fairview High School Class of 2010 take the stage at Lakewood Civic Auditorium June 4 for commencement.

Superintendent Brion Deitsch said relationships should be another important “R” in the students’ lives along with reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmatic.

“Relationships and people we come in contact with are what colors our world,” he said. “These relationships will help us grow and determine our feelings on issues and expand our world.”

We go through life carrying a vase, and our relationships are like flowers in the vase, Deitsch said.

“My advise to you is to get as many flowers in your vase as you can and cherish and enjoy them,” the superintendent told the 150 graduates.

In addition to the physical restoration of Fairview High School that was part of the Gemini Project, Principal Kevin Liptrap said the class of 2010 also led a cultural and spiritual reconstruction of the school through renewed pride.

Liptrap said the zip-tie, the flexible plastic fastener that students used to tie up the school lockers and doors on the last day of school as a senior prank, was a good symbol for the class of 2010. It’s straight yet it’s flexible, he said.

Liptrap also had individual words of congratulations for several members of the class of 2010 he’s gotten to know in special ways.

Valedictorian Amanda Elizabeth Dunson said Fairview High School taught her, along with her classmates, how to grow from awkward, unsure freshmen to confident, optimistic graduates.

“Fairview High taught each of us to take a risk, to open ourselves to new experiences and to build the strong bonds of friendship,” she said.

“I began my time at Fairview with a group of strangers,” said Dunson, who had attended grade school at St. Angela. “I am ending my time at Fairview with a family.

“We are graduating with new, improved versions of ourselves. We are leaving with a piece of Fairview.”

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