Wet weather won’t keep Mountain Pointe grads down

Flashbulbs glowing from the bleachers; lighting bolts touching down on the apex of South Mountain.

Whatever the origin of the flickering light that shone down on Kiefer Stadium Thursday night, it meant little to the 500-plus maroon-clad graduates of the Class of 2008 at Mountain Pointe High School.

"This is not the weather we would have ordered this evening," Principal Brenda Mayberry said during her introduction, "but as a Pride family we have weathered many storms, and we will weather this one."

On graduation day at Mountain Pointe a year earlier, temperatures climbed just shy of 100 degrees.

But on this night, the weather - including continuous light rain for the better part of the p.m. hours and a temperature in the 50s as the graduates marched in - couldn't have been more opposite.

And neither could the ceremony itself, for that matter.

With weather a concern to school administrators all day, word came down shortly before the ceremony that the commencement would stay outside, rain or not. The traditional order of events, however, was flipped to make certain each and every graduate had a chance to hear his or her name called. The speeches and awards would come second, weather permitting.

"We went out and got a few necessities, a little poncho, some warmer clothes," said parent Ron Gentile, sprinting around the stadium to snap the perfect photo of his son, Trenton, walking across the stage. "A little rain wouldn't have kept us away from this."

Once the final diploma was presented, class valedictorian Kenneth Zhu got a chance to congratulate his classmates.

"We spent almost a fourth of our lives at Mountain Pointe. For some people, these four years went by fast - too fast," he said. "And for some, they were excruciatingly slow. But at any case, everything culminates tonight, and I hope everyone can look back and say they had a good experience at graduation, and at Mountain Pointe."

For Mayberry, whose tenure as Mountain Pointe principal came to an end along side the 2008 senior class Thursday evening with her retirement, the evening was bittersweet.

"It's a very special group of people to go out with," she said prior to the ceremony. "I'm reminding them to set their expectations high, and that they will accomplish great things in all that they do. Never set the bar too low."

And setting the bar high for future graduates was exactly what the Class of 2008 did.

Nearly 150 students earned academic or athletic scholarship offers for college beginning in the fall to the tune of more than $6 million, and eight students - David Beighe, Emma Burr, Garrett Frantz, Matthew Gonzalez, Alizee Jenck, Andrew Sannier, Yang Yu, Zhu, the valedictorian, and salutatorian Aubri Carman, also a Flinn Foundation Scholar - were named National Merit Finalists.

"They've always accomplished everything that we expected of them," Mayberry said, "and much, much more."

See the rest of AFN's complete graduation coverage:

Graduation Night:

DV and MP weather the rain during graduation

Wet weather won't keep Mountain Pointe grads down

Desert Vista's '08 class record-breaking

Class Lists:

Mountain Pointe

Desert Vista

Features:

Identical triplets set to walk in Mountain Pointe grad ceremony

Boatload of DV grads to become midshipmen - or women

Sports:

Carman, Hood MP's scholar-athletes of the year

Shepard, Kline DV's scholar-athletes of the year

Ellenberger, Sangston Horizon Honors' student-athletes of the year