AV Class Of 2025 Applies For Scholarships

Another turn of the calendar and once again Anderson Valley High School Seniors are within shooting range of graduation. The Panther class of 2024 has 38 graduating seniors. The class of 2025 has dropped to only 28. This is roughly one fourth fewer than 2024 and, in a small way, reflects declining enrollment in all local schools.

Each year graduating seniors are invited to apply for scholarships, most of which are provided by the local community. This small valley offers an astounding number of scholarships given the overall population.

Last year’s scholarships included:

This same list has extended scholarship opportunities again this year. With one quarter fewer students in the running, the chances of receiving a scholarship have increased.

The selected students will be honored at a special awards dinner in the high school gym on the 22nd of April. The awards dinner is by invitation only but the graduation ceremony is also held in the gym and is open to all comers. If you would like to see our recent crop of young people walking down the aisle towards their adult lives the ceremony will be held on June 12th at 7 pm.

In reviewing many of the scholarship applications several things stood out. The first outstanding thing was the number of students accepted to ranking colleges including UC Davis, Cal-Berkeley, Cal Poly, Sarah Lawrence and UCLA. The second stand out was the number of students who have prevailed despite serious difficulties. One student’s home burned to the ground this school year. Several students have serious ongoing health problems. Many students have family members with significant health problems. Also there are the large families living in small, sometimes substandard houses. There is the need to for parents to work long hours and multiple jobs to make ends meet. Despite these obstacles, all the graduates applying have positive hopes, plans and dreams for their futures. These plans range from barber and hairstylist to lawyer and community organizer. Lots of sights are set on medical careers. Many students include their families in their future plans wishing to repay parents and siblings for the sacrifices they have made to support their education.

After the awards dinner you will be able to read the names of the recipients in the online AVA. As graduations draws near the AVA also hopes to follow their tradition of publishing photos of each class graduate.

Looking back on a big city graduation in 1968 with 350 classmates, I scarcely remember any scholarships awarded. The ones I do remember came from formal national organizations like the American Scholarship Association. There were absolutely no local based awards. The process of graduating was formal and impersonal.

As the Anderson Valley class of 2025 proceeds to build their adult lives I hope they will look back with appreciation on the well-wishing and support that their community showed toward them. In Anderson Valley graduation is a much more personal experience than in larger high schools. In this case it is clear that smaller is definitely better.