Tech Says Goodbye to Class of 2008, Honors Veteran
Published on Sunday, June 08, 2008
By Susan Milton
smilton@capecodonline.com
June 08, 2008
HARWICH — Four years ago, freshmen from Provincetown to Mashpee walked through the doors of Cape Cod Regional Technical High School in Harwich.
"I knew no one on the bus and I wasn't going to know anybody in my classes," class president Calvin Castillias, now a trained electrician, told his classmates. "Now, like you, I'm confident I can go out into my field with certain skills " and put them to work in life and in the shop."
Yesterday, families and friends watched as the 166 graduates in their maroon gowns picked up their diplomas and prepared to go to work, on to college or into the military.
"Cape Cod Tech has given us a choice," valedictorian Joseph Angulo said, " a choice of working in our chosen field or pursuing higher education."
The technical school educates students in their academics and also trains them in 18 different career programs, from carpentry and electrical, to graphic arts and information technology.
Students in the class of 2008 class helped build a house for Habitat for Humanity "and learned how great it is to give back to the community," said Angulo, who also savored the opportunity to teach woodworking after school "to a rambunctious class of third-graders with hammers."
Keynote speaker and Cape Tech teacher Kevin Rand graduated 20 years ago from Cape Tech with a speciality in marine technology. Now he's back, teaching at the school with some of the same teachers who helped him find his way when he was a young man who "just wanted to rev up engines and break stuff." Then he won the gold medal at a state competition in his field and enjoyed working on a job site as a student.
"You'll leave here today with more than you realize. These skills are a special gift. Choosing Cape Cod Tech was a good choice, he told the graduates.
Rand generated a lot of laughter when he asked graduates to look out at the smiling faces in the audience.
"A few of them have extra-wide smiles. They have plans for your bedrooms," he said.
With a standing ovation, the class and audience welcomed the class' newest member, Arthur Richard Kelley, 82, of Marstons Mills, who finally got his high school diploma.
Kelley left school at 17 in 1943 to fight in China and the South Pacific in World War II, school superintendent William Fisher said. Kelley later fought in the Korean War and, with his wife, Ruth, built a life with nine children, 20 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
