West Sonoma County High Schools Trade Path Awards

 

 

 

 

Tony Given introduced the seven winners of the 2016 Trade Paths Award:  Wesley Albini (El Molino senior), Branden Carrell (Analy senior), Jesse Kanihan (Laguna senior, who was unable to attend the event), Maddy Richard (El Molino senior), William Steele (El Molino senior), Ben Tiche (Analy junior) and Gianna Zanzi (Analy junior.) In turn, each of the students introduced their guests, who included parents, grandparents, siblings and teachers.

 

Master of Ceremonies Rick Williams invited Branden Carrell to share a video he had made, an entertaining piece featuring local bands, school events, local scenes and one of Branden’s specialties, local skateboarding --all in under five minutes.  As a sophomore, Branden had already created a documentary for which he was paid.

 

MC Rick then asked the other winners what their special interests were, via secret questions that even our able spokesperson wasn’t aware of.  Each of five students (Branden was spared this challenge) answered with humor and aplomb.

 

The club’s trade paths award (formerly vocational education recognition) has been a tradition for 14 years, but the 2016 group was special --in diverse fields, creativity, perseverance and commitment.  Their fields included the aforementioned video creations, as well as water conservation construction projects, culinary arts, design/graphic web skills, school site improvements, agriculture-machine repair and creative, whimsical products (two of the award winners were also part of the Maker program).

 

In addition to Torrey Olson’s annual, outstanding tri-fold commemorative program, one-page flyers were included at each table, under the title “7-Up” -- a reference to the 1964 BBC documentary that followed the lives of a group of seven-year olds from different backgrounds --to see if the old Jesuit theory was correct (‘Show me the child at seven and I will show you the man.’)  Every seven years a documentary update follows the lives of these subjects (the most recent was “56-Up“, in 2013.  In fact, the subjects --now almost 60 years old --did not change much in attitudes and behaviors over all those years.

 

The seven high school students highlighted on this day have, in fact, made changes.  In addition to their regular school work, they have carved out different niches that will help them perform well in the future.

 

Torrey handed out the certificates and cash awards to the students as the program came to a close (with MC Rick still looking for the source of the secret questions).  However, two local teachers

--Joe Maloney and Ann Humphrey --took a moment to thank Rotarians for their efforts and recognition of  local youth as the meeting came to an end.