The Cupertino Courier

Cover Story

Bright Future

Graduates now look forward to beginning their adult lives

By MICHELLE MAGHRIBI

Cupertino High School graduate Kris Fraser 18, has redefined the word perseverance, literally beating the odds that have been stacked against him since birth.

Kris is one of the nine graduates this school year to have been part of the Fremont Union High School District's special education program called Horizons.

He was born with a very severe form of dyslexia, which prevents him from reading or writing without the aid of a computer program.

However, this exceptional graduate doesn't let his learning disability stand in the way of his goals.

"I grew up with my mom as a role model," Kris says. "It helps to have a goal and to have somebody to help you through it like a friend or relative. Even though I get frustrated, it never entered my mind to quit."

Kris is active in his church youth group, likes to travel, and says one of his favorite subjects in school is history.

"It is interesting to learn what happened a long time ago when I wasn't around," Kris says.

Kris' teacher, Susan Cooper, marveled at his drive during her three years of teaching him and said he is right on track (graduating at age 18), a true success story.

"He has had to work harder for his degree, probably harder than anyone I have known," Cooper says. "He is very self-reliant and doesn't want his hand held and insisted on carrying heavier loads than I thought he should so that he could graduate on time."

According to Cooper, Kris has had to overcome "unbearable obstacles," including learning some computer technology.

"He had to learn how to scan his textbooks into the computer where a computer voice will read the text word by word to Kris, who wears headphones and watches the monitor," Cooper says.

"I've had many students with dyslexia, and it is common when they enter this program, they are ready to give up," Cooper says. "Kris didn't have that attitude at all, and his dyslexia was more severe than other students."

Horizons Program school psychologist Leon Canerot echoed Cooper's thoughts and said Kris' dyslexia was severe enough to make learning basic academic skills difficult.

"He is one of he most highly motivated kids I have ever worked with," Canerot says.

Kris' mother, Karen Ganley, says that it took the schools and doctors many years to fully diagnose Kris' learning disability; she gives the Horizons programs and its teachers rave reviews.

According to Ganley, the transitional class has helped her son and taught him how to cope with job applications and interviews.

"I am constantly in awe of him and how much he struggles with his disability on a daily basis. It's a struggle for him to even order off of a menu in a restaurant without his scanner, but he has never given up, not once," Ganley says. "He is my hero. Eight hours of a school day for Kris is like eight hours for us working out in a gym--he never gave up, never rebelled; he kept pursuing life instead of darkness."

Ganley says when Kris was a baby he loved books even though, ironically, his disability would keep him from ever reading one.

As part of his plans, Kris also plans on attending a camp this summer aimed at helping young adults figure out what they want to do in life.

Kris' pastimes include playing street hockey, football and wrestling.

His high school awarded him its "Sportsmanship Award" for wrestling, recognizing his unwavering commitment to his team.

Kris' desire to help others is apparent in every aspect of his young life.

He has a calm manner and hopes his plight with dyslexia will help others overcome their learning challenges.

Kris was part of a class project in making special devices used with small children who have had cleft palate or lip operations in Third World countries and says he likes helping others and will continue to do so after graduation.

Kris has planned a summer trip to Africa with his church group where he will talk to kids his age about AIDS and what precautions can be taken to help stop the progression of the disease.

Bright future awaits enterprising Homestead business grad

By ANNE WARD ERNST

Long before Visish Srinivasan started bringing home trophies in high school from the Future Business Leaders of America club, he was interested in business and law.

When he was about 6, his parents, Ram and Sumathi Srinivasan, told him about Bill Gates and what he does. Later, on his own, Visish read about Gates. That's when Visish began calling himself "Bill Gates."

"He said, 'I'm going to be the next [Bill Gates,]' " Ram says. "I have a friend who is a very influential businessman who started calling him Bill Gates. He told me, 'I don't know if I believe in you, but I believe in your son.' "

So began Visish's passion for business.

The 18-year-old is a 2006 graduate of Homestead High School. He was the president of the Future Business Leaders of America club. He helped the club grow and recruited students from lower grades who he hopes will carry on the school's winning tradition. For example, the school grabbed the state FBLA competition title for the eighth consecutive year, sending the team to the national competition in Nashville, Tenn., in late June.

Among Visish's many awards from FBLA, he counts five first-place wins since joining in 2003.

FBLA is a national nonprofit student organization that works to prepare students for business leadership roles.

Many of the events are based on months-long projects the students put together. They write reports to submit to the competition and then do a 10-minute presentation about the project at regional, state or national competitions.

One project Visish worked on involved a partnership with a nonprofit organization in San Jose. The organization, Sunday Friends, is a place where low-income families can learn and practice social and economic life skills.

Visish and his team helped adults with things such as résumé building, job interview skills and learning to balance a checkbook.

At the end of 11 weeks, the team wrote a report on all aspects of planning, execution and wrap-up of the project.

In another project, his team partnered with a fourth-grade classroom at Lakewood Elementary School in Sunnyvale. The idea was to help the children understand how a business worked. The students picked a product--candy--for which they had to come up with a marketing plan, business plan and model, and then present the concept to their families.

His involvement in FBLA became like a part-time job. Visish says he spent about 12 hours a week working on different aspects of the club.

"He has been crazy for this FBLA. We had to tell him this FBLA is an extracurricular activity and he had to concentrate on academics first," Ram says.

But even before this enthusiasm for business consumed his high school days, Visish had decided on a different career path.

When he returned home from a trip to Japan, he announced he was going to be a doctor when he grew up.

It came as quite a surprise to his parents, Ram says.

"I did not take it seriously. I know that it is a demanding kind of job," Sumathi says.

Visish was an eighth-grader at Cupertino Middle School and on his way to Toyokawa, Japan, to be a delegate in a student exchange program with Cupertino's sister city.

The long airplane flight gave him time to contemplate his career choices, he says.

"I couldn't really sleep, and I started thinking about business and law. I'm still somewhat of a science geek, and I couldn't give that up. I decided I wanted a science-oriented career," Visish says.

Community service has always been important to him and his family, and he believes that by becoming a doctor, he can combine the two.

"Community service has always been my driving force. As a doctor, when I can see a smile on a face I'll know that I'm really being useful directly," he says.

Come fall, Visish will attend Drexel University College of Medicine. He was accepted to a combined medical degree program that immediately puts him into medical school. Very few applicants are admitted to the program, Ram says.

Visish also won a presidential scholarship to the school which, Ram says, he was told is valued at about $100,000.

"Thank God, otherwise I don't know what I'd do," Ram says.

Ram and Sumathi are proud of their son's accomplishments and say that academically, he's always been one of the top students in his school. But a slight slip in grades during his sophomore year taught him something valuable.

"By the end of the year he understood the mistakes he made. He compensated for that during his junior year. If he hadn't slipped ... he wouldn't have known what it takes," Ram says.

His son has always been a different thinker. It was something the couple noticed early on in his childhood.

"His mind works really differently. If you had asked me five or eight years ago, I would have said, 'This guy thinks differently.' If you talk about out-of-the-box thinking. I just didn't understand. I just thought this guy's weird," Ram says, laughing.

It was Ram and Sumathi who taught Visish to think about things greater than himself.

Ram gave Visish a book to read: "Thirukkural," written about 2,000 years ago by a poet named Tiruvalluvar. It is written in the couple's native Tamil, a predominant language of India, and includes about 3,300 couplets about anything and everything related to life, such as gratitude, education, family values, hard work and dealing with money. Visish didn't know Tamil at the time and Ram thought this would be a nice way to teach him.

"The amazing thing is, somehow after 2,000 years it is still relevant," Ram says.

Visish wound up on a children's program on Stanford University's radio. Every week for three years he would recite a verse from the book in Tamil and in English. Ram helped him read and articulate the verse and challenged Visish to apply a life experience related to the verse.

"I told him, 'I will try to help you understand the meaning of this. What I will not do is help you come up with an example from your own life,' " Ram says.

Visish stood up to the challenge.

Lynbrook student plans to use her experiences to help others

By HUGH BIGGAR

As a member of her high school's business club, Mei-Cheng Shi listened closely when a guest speaker advised students to live a life that takes advantage of every opportunity.

Mei-Cheng, a 2006 graduate of Lynbrook High School, has since taken those words to heart.

At Lynbrook, she not only served as an officer and statewide president of Future Business Leaders of America, but was also on the Youth Executive Board of the Santa Clara Valley Red Cross. In addition, she volunteered with the youth community service program, Interact, and interned with Leadership Silicon Valley--a consortium of local business leaders.

Along the way, Mei-Cheng, who moved to the area from Shanghai, China, 14 years ago, also found time to excel in school and join the cheer squad. She will attend Harvard University in the fall and plans to study economics and molecular biology. Mei-Cheng is fluent in Mandarin and English and ultimately hopes for a future in business, although she also wants to remain involved in community service.

Her experiences volunteering with the Red Cross and with first- through third-graders in San Jose through Interact, a Rotary-sponsored youth service program, helped shape her desire to give back. As a Red Cross volunteer, she helped teach first aid skills and CPR to children.

"The kids were so cute, and being able to pass on information to them helps them prepare for school and life," Mei-Cheng says.

"It was inspiring, and I want to do as much as I can to make the world a better place."

This multifaceted graduate keeps her eye on her goals

By JASON GOLDMAN-HALL

Most people would say maintaining a perfect 4.0 grade point average, participating in several honors societies and never scoring lower than a 780 on any SAT section was the hard part of high school, but for 18-year old Katie Near, the hardest part wasn't even in a classroom.

Katie, who graduated June 8 from Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, said her greatest challenge in high school was dropping time in the pool as a member of the varsity swim team and working with her teammates on the varsity water polo team.

"I think it's the athletic things she's most proud of because it was the hardest for her," said Katie's mother, Nancy Near, a retired Hewlett-Packard employee and a former swimmer herself.

Katie joined the swim team as a freshman because she had friends on the team at Kennedy Middle School and thought it would be fun after her years of swim lessons.

But the difference between competitive swimming and swimming lessons is almost as wide as the difference between learning to walk and becoming a competitive runner.

"When I first started, I knew how to swim, but I wasn't fast at all," Katie said. "But I just kept at it."

When she started, she swam the 100-yard freestyle--four laps in a standard pool--in just under two minutes.

Four years later, she can swim it in 59.5 seconds. The world record for the 100-meter freestyle--the international equivalent of her event--is 53.52 seconds.

In both her junior and senior years, Katie was given the Most Improved award by her team. She was also a co-captain of the team this past year.

Ironically, Katie said her favorite stroke was backstroke, the one race in which swimmers do not get to keep their eye locked on their goal the entire time, instead having to look up at the sky, or ceiling, as they swim.

In the fall she heads to Harvey Mudd College in Southern California to study either chemistry or biology. Either field would allow her to use math, a subject she has always enjoyed.

"I like that it makes sense; it's all very logical," she said. "I've always wanted to be a research scientist, since I was in elementary school."

But her life isn't all equations in classrooms and fractions of seconds in pools. Katie is also an active member of the Los Altos Methodist Church's choir and a budding artist, primarily in pencil, charcoal and pastel drawing.

Katie said she was known primarily for being a good, shy student before starting swimming and water polo, and the sports--especially water polo, a physical, vocal team sport--helped her break out.

"I never expected to have a daughter who would earn a varsity letter in a sport," said her mother.

Katie said she had never considered herself an athlete until sophomore year, when she became a part of the aquatic culture.

She said she hopes to find a similar athletic group at Harvey Mudd so she can maintain her balance of educational and recreational pursuits. She also hopes to travel during her college years, and may study abroad in South America or Spain to use the Spanish language skills she's built up in more than five years of classes.

"I think Katie had that bug that she's going to travel," said her mother.

But wherever she goes, Katie wants to come home for holidays and other events, and is glad that she's far enough away from home to get a new experience but close enough that visiting is easy, at least during her freshman year.

After that, she said she's going to have to wait and see what other things she has going on.

"If she sets a goal for herself, she's going to work and get it," said her mother proudly.

Mitty student looks to future in writing, science

By HUGH BIGGAR

For Lisette Arellano, the power of a free press became clear to her after she published a controversial opinion piece in the San Jose Mercury News in the summer of 2005.

A rising senior at Archbishop Mitty High School at the time, she questioned her Catholic faith in the article, a hot topic within her diocesan Catholic high school.

Arellano, a Cupertino resident and 2006 Mitty graduate, has no regrets about the article; instead, it affirmed her passion for journalism--a passion she now plans to pursue in college.

Arellano first became interested in journalism when she began writing for the Mitty student newspaper as a sophomore. She started by writing a few articles for the newspaper's justice awareness section. Since, she has served as the social justice section editor, participated in a summer program for aspiring student journalists and earned a $20,000 national journalism scholarship for college.

"I can't imagine a world without newspapers," Arellano says, disputing the notion contemporary adolescents are online all the time. "There is something about sitting down with a newspaper for one thing. You can't smell the Internet. And there is a lot of room in online media for people who are not qualified and who don't adhere to a code of ethics. You really need people who can [serve as a] watchdog."

Arellano would like to make her own contribution by becoming both a writer and a scientist.

In the fall of 2006, she will attend UC-Santa Barbara with the help of the National Press Club's Ellen Masin Persina Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded annually to two high schools students considering careers in journalism. The students receive $5,000 a year over four years.

At UC-Santa Barbara, with the help of the scholarship, Arellano plans to pursue her journalism interests by writing for the school newspaper, and her science interests through a select program that has a laboratory slot reserved for her. In her free time, she hopes to continue distance running and is currently training for the school's cross-country team tryouts in August.

Arellano, a native of Mexico, chose UC-Santa Barbara over Cornell University, in part because of its proximity to the coast--a location that appeals to her interest in marine biology.

In addition to marine biology, Arellano hopes to study environmental sciences and comparative literature and combine the two through writing.

"I think there needs to be a link between scientific research and general audiences," Arellano said.

Arellano attributes her experience of moving from Mexico to Cupertino at age 8, and naturalists Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey as inspirations.

Upon moving to California when her father took a job with Hewlett-Packard, she was struck by the lushness of the state compared to Mexico City.

"It was so green, it seemed like something worth taking care of," she says.

Later, reading Goodall, she realized, "the only way to get people to care about all this nature is by telling people about it.

"It made me care about the world around me," she says, "and I want to do the same for others."

Harker School grad is a young man of many talents

By MICHELLE MAGHRIBI

Harker School graduate Vijay Umapathy 18, is more than just an outstanding student with a sense of humor,;he is an inspiration.

Vijay's list of achievements include a 4.3 GPA, admission to MIT, president of the Robotics Club, a music choral award, rave reviews as an actor and a stint doing Improv comedy.

Vijay moved to the Bay Area from Andover, Mass., after his father's death when he was only 9.

"My father was a wonderful man, well-respected in the community," Vijay said. "He influenced my work ethic. After he died, all I had were my mother's descriptions of how he lived his life."

Vijay's mother remarried, and the family relocated to the West Coast for employment reasons.

"It was kind of a Brady Bunch type of situation, my mother, sister, and I combined families with my stepfather, who was also widowed and had two daughters," Vijay said.

He credits his mother for being a strong role model.

"My mom said there are three types of people: problem-creators, problem-reporters and problem-solvers," Vijay said. "She has taught me to never sit there and say 'Oh, this is impossible.' "

In addition to his record in academics, Vijay was also chosen as one of 140 students nationwide to participate in the 2005 summer high school apprenticeship research program (SHARP) at NASA Ames at Moffett Field.

"I was chosen for the eight-week program out of approximately 1,500 people who applied," Vijay said.

Theatrical arts teacher Jeffrey Draper says he became acquainted with Vijay during his sophomore year.

"I was directing Hamlet when Vijay walked in and auditioned to be the villain," Draper says.

Vijay had never acted before and Draper said he knew Vijay would have to catch up with the many other students who had been in acting classes for much longer.

"He exceeded my expectations and caught up to where the others were in about three months," Draper says.

According to Draper, the school is still talking about the performance Vijay gave as Bob Marley in the school's performance of A Christmas Carol.

"He was riveting and fearless in that role," Draper says.

Vijay's talents also extend to choral abilities. He auditioned and was chosen to perform in the school's show choral group "Downbeat!" and received the school's choral music award. Being mechanically gifted, Vijay joined the school's robotics team his freshman year.

According to Vijay, robotics can be physically as well as mentally grueling and is not for the faint of heart.

"Robotics is possibly the most hazardous activity you can do at Harker. You can cut, scrape and burn yourself in ways you never imagined--in some ways, it's more dangerous than football!" Vijay says.

Physics and astronomy teacher Eric Nelson says, "First Vijay took on the role as project manager for robotics, which is kind of like being a company CEO," Nelson says. "Robotics is like a real-life startup, and to lead, you have to bail people out of situations."

Nelson says Vijay held his own as president. In addition to his many natural talents, he used his intelligence and wit to connect with all age groups, effectively acting as a mentor.

"I like the adrenaline of corporate America," Vijay says. "I hold high expectations for not just myself but the people around me. In a lot of ways I am an idealist--sometimes that helps, sometimes it hurts."

Vijay says being accepted to one of the top engineering schools in the country has been a life long dream.

Attending Harker was a positive experience for Vijay, and he feels fortunate to be in one of the first several graduating classes.

Cycle Recyclery founder awarded inaugural JW Award at Bellarmine

By MARY GOTTSCHALK

In addition to awarding Jan-Willem Knapen his degree posthumously at the graduation ceremony on May 27, Bellarmine College Prep assured his memory will live on in the form of a new JW Award.

Derek Beck was the first winner of the JW Award, which will go to a senior who starts a project helping society in a creative way.

Derek is the founder of Cycle Recyclery, which takes used bicycles, repairs them and then donates them to those in need.

Many of the bikes have been donated to InnVision's Montgomery Street Inn, enabling shelter residents to commute to jobs.

Beck became aware of the importance of bicycles in the summer of 2004 when he did his 15 hours of junior service required by Bellarmine. He volunteered at InnVision.

Mark and Barbara Beck loaned their son a work space in Los Gatos after he told them of his idea of collecting and repairing bikes.

Coincidentally, InnVision was offered some 1,000 bikes by Stanford University. The bikes had been abandoned on campus at the end of the school year.

Derek initially took 160 bicycles and started working on them with the help of longtime friends Michael Buonaccorsi, Danny Taff and Ryan Hall.

Dick Vennerbeck, a business partner of Mark Beck and a longtime family friend, supervised the volunteers, teaching them how to repair a bike and do a quality check at the end.

In the fall, Derek will head to Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash.

For information on Cycle Recyclery visit www.cyclerecyclery.org or call 408.354.2693.

Special ed student exudes enthusiasm and school pride

By ANNE WARD ERNST

When Victor Gregory is introduced to someone, he reaches out to shake hands with his crooked right hand and introduces himself as Coach Vic. Victor's teams aren't always winners, and when they lose, he cries. Although Victor, who has cerebral palsy, only reads at a first- or second-grade level, he nonetheless has made it all the way through Fremont High School.

Physically and developmentally disabled, Victor is in the special education program at the school. While it can be hard to understand him because his speech is slurred, the adult coaches with whom he works, and many of the players and his classmates, are able to understand him--if not through his words than through his body language and love of sports and the players.

Victor is considered an assistant coach in football, volleyball and basketball at the school, and he helps coach at several Lakewood Pony League baseball games.

He's different, but he's treated as one of the team. In fact, some said they can't imagine the sports without him.

"He's kind of like a mascot. He's the icon of Lakewood," says Sam Davis, one of the mothers at a recent game.

Ken Michels, a Sunnyvale resident and coach at Lakewood, says he has known Victor for about three years. At their first meeting, he was taken aback a little by Victor's disabilities, but those feelings quickly vanished.

"One of my favorite things is to hear him give the players a speech. He's pretty animated," Michels says.

"The things he says to the players are always positive. The kids see that," says Andy Walczak, teacher and head coach of varsity football at Fremont High School.

"He has this amazing personality. People want him around," says Michelle Wagner, a teacher who coaches boys and girls volleyball at Fremont, who works with Victor.

Victor has been coaching since he was a sophomore. He just started showing up at Walczak's classes and practices telling Walczak he was going to play football. Walczak got him a jersey and had Victor pass out water to the players during games. Walczak gave Victor other duties he could handle, but mostly Victor is there because of his passion and camaraderie.

"The benefits of having him there are the enthusiasm he has. The other kids draw on that," Walczak says.

Keith Mimms, a special education teacher and coach at Sunnyvale Middle School, has known Victor since he was 10 years old.

When he learned Victor was helping Wagner and Walczak coach, he invited Victor to help him coach at Lakewood Pony League baseball games.

What Victor brings to the players and the games goes well beyond delivering water, Mimms says.

"They [the players] start to appreciate things more. They see that Victor was there for every game or practice, and they appreciate that he's there because he wants to be there. He helps bring the team concept together," he says.

Mimms and Wagner count Victor as a member of their respective families. Mimms sees Victor on a baseball field or he talks to him on the phone almost every day. Wagner says Victor knows her boyfriend, brother and parents. She rented a tuxedo for him and she and her boyfriend took Victor to dinner and the senior ball last month. Victor was so excited about the event he wore the dress shoes to school all week before the dance.

Wagner wanted Victor to have a letter jacket so she bought him one. It has "Coach Vic" embroidered on it and a patch representing each of the three sports he helped coach. Victor wears it every day.

Jay Rosenberg, Victor's special education teacher, says Victor always reports to his classmates the results of each sporting event, thus bridging the gap between the mainstream population in the school and the special education students.

"He helped us to be part of the campus community. He loves sports. He brought special education to [the rest of the school]," Rosenberg says.

The students see Victor as a classmate, not a special education student who just happens to go to their school, or just happens to be a coach.

Senior John Larson played volleyball for three years with Victor as one of his coaches.

"Without him we wouldn't be the same team," he says.

He's one of the better-known students in the school. His highly social personality is one of his strengths, Rosenberg says.

"Everyone at school likes him. He's a popular kid. Everyone knows his name," says Yolanda Alva, a graduating senior and this year's Associated Student Body president.