It was a packed house Monday morning at Southwestern College’s Devore Stadium, but none of the spectators were there to watch the champion Jaguars take on a division rival in football.
Instead the thousands in attendance were on hand to cheer for the 2018 graduating class of the Otay Ranch High School Mustangs.
By the end of the morning ceremony nearly 650 Otay Ranch graduates turned their tassel over and officially became Otay Ranch High School alums.
“It’s really cool to graduate and see a lot of people go to college and take that next step in life,” said graduate Paul Chavez,17.
Paul’s next adventure will lead him to the California State University Maritime Academy in Vallejo, Calif. where he plans to study mechanical engineering.
He admits that graduating high school was a challenge because he had to overcome a serious case of laziness.
After the ceremony, Paul was looking for some of his closest friends to take pictures with.
“It’s the last-time I’m going to see a lot of my friends so it’s a pretty special day,” he said.
Student-athlete Ivan Bringas, 18, said it still has not hit him that he has graduated.
“I’m a little bit shocked,” he said. “But I think I’m going to be ready for the future.”
Bringas played lacrosse and soccer during his high school years.
He admits it was a tough task to balance a good academic record with playing sports.
Bringas said he will attend San Diego State University in the fall to major in psychology with an emphasis in education. Bringas dreams of one day being a school counselor or an assistant principal.
Bringas’ dad David, said he always dreamed of seeing his oldest son walk across that graduation stage.
“My wife and I were reminiscing this morning that the day he was born we were talking about what it was going to feel like seeing all of these milestone dreams, which is him graduating from high school, going to college and getting married,” he said. “So today we’re reminiscing over 18 years ago this was just a distant thought and here we are living it.”
Otay Ranch High School kicked off all of the graduations for the Sweetwater Union High School District’s 2018 graduating class.
Sweetwater Union High School District’s spokesman Manny Rubio said this year the district experienced a record breaking number of 12th grade graduates.
Otay Ranch High School had 650 graduates alone, but Rubio said there will be about 8,000 12th grade graduates in total, an increase from previous years.
In the past few years, Rubio said the district usually sees 6,000 to 6,500 graduates each year.
