EDITOR’S NOTE: Graduations — from high school, college or trade school — mark a turning place. Decisions made at graduation chart a course for years to come. Today, a look at the plans of three Emporia High School graduating seniors. Wednesday, post-secondary graduates prepare for life.
Sidney Cline
Flint Hills Technical College
Growing up, Sidney Cline always thought she’d enjoy being a zoologist or a marine biologist. She loves animals and she loves the ocean. Then she found that she loved designing Web sites even more.
“I learned that I was horrible at math and science,” Cline said, laughing. Web-building, on the other hand, is “perfect.”
“Right now I’m helping to maintain the Web site for the high school,” she said. “I really love to do that. It’s my passion.”
To satisfy that, she has passed the qualifying test and applied to the Flint Hills Technical College to enroll in its Web design course, and she’s ready to begin classes any time now that she’s discovered a career she truly wants to pursue.
“I think it was just during the summer I was on the Internet at my house all the time and I realized I liked messing around with html,” Cline said, referring to the “written language” of Web-building.
“I passed the courses real easily and I figured, that’s for me.”
She completed the Internet Communications I course at Emporia High School during her junior year and enrolled in Internet Communications II for her senior year. The first course got her started on Web sites and the second class is a hands-on course that actually maintains the Web site.
“You have the option to take that only one semester, but of course I took that the whole year,” she said. “I want to get as much experience as I can get.”
Her goal is to freelance, building Web sites for companies and individuals who need them.
“I don’t want to really stay with one company and maintain that Web site,” Cline explained.
And she already has her first job in sight: building a Web site for her father’s business, Brodie’s 66 Service.
Cline, 18, is the daughter of Susan and Brodie Cline.
Kelly Gardner
Military
Kelly Gardner wants to see the world, and he figures serving in the military is the best way to accomplish his goal.
Gardner, 18, enlisted in the Army Reserves in January 2006, when he was 17. Now, as he prepares to graduate from high school, he will have almost 1 1/2 years of service to count toward the 20-year career he expects to have. Retirement age for him could come as early as 37.
“They’ll help you with college,” Gardner said of the military. “If you want to travel the world, the military’s the best way to go because it’s all paid for and everything.”
He comes from a family with a tradition of military service; his great-great-grandfather served with Teddy Roosevelt.
“My whole family is nuts about the military,” he said. “It’s only me and my great-great-grandfather are the only ones in the Army. The rest are in the Marines, the Navy ...”
Gardner plans to continue working at Bruff’s Bar and Grill for a while after graduation, and to continue his regularly scheduled weekend service after he completes more training at Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo.
“They think that basic training is so hard, but it’s actually pretty easy,” Gardner said. “It’s 90 percent mental and 10 percent physical. It was a lot of fun to me.”
He took a lot of physical education and technical classes to better prepare himself for active duty.
Military service is something Gardner recommends to his friends, and already has talked one of them into joining, albeit the friend chose the Marines.
In October, he expects to be in Egypt for two weeks of additional training.
“I don’t know where I’ll go after that,” he said.
Gardner, the son of Mark Gardner of Emporia and Leisa Buell of Houston, serves with the 425th Transportation Unit based in Emporia.
He’s eager to begin his service formally, though he acknowledges the inherent danger in his chosen field.
“It doesn’t bother me that much because I know I’m serving for a great country and I know I’m serving with people who will protect me, and I’ll protect them if I need to,” he said.
Edgar Morales
College
Three years of hard work has paid off for 18-year-old Edgar Morales.
Morales, a senior at Emporia High School, is looking for a summer job that will help pay for his college tuition. College was not firmly in his plans until recently.
Morales, the son of Dolores and Arturo Morales, moved to Emporia with his family about three years ago from their home in Mexico.
Edgar could not speak English at the time, but since has become fluent in the language, through studying at school and learning from English-speaking friends.
“I just got three years here in Emporia, and high school was a really good experience,” he said.
He’s planning to major in business, when classes begin in the fall.
“I really like business,” he said. “I think that I’d love to work with money and people.”
He is looking at three universities — Emporia State, Brigham Young or Hawaii — and he is ready to begin now.
Morales also has an interest in Web design, and may pursue a career in that area.
It will be difficult to leave behind the teachers and the friends he’s made since moving to Emporia, he said; however, he is intrigued with what lies ahead for him.
“I think it’s so exciting to meet new people and, you know, the challenge of being in college and to prepare for life,” Morales said. “It’s going to be hard sometimes, but it’s going to be fun. I try to look for the positive things for college and I think it’s going to be a really good experience.”