Speaker to grads: Campbell High key to his success

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

alcorn@vindy.com

CAMPBELL

Campbell Memorial High School

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Campbell Memorial High School graduated 71 from the Class of 2017 Thursday night on a sunshine-soaked John Knapick Field.

Campbell Memorial High School graduates said their four years at the school were life-changing, and speakers at their commencement ceremony Thursday at a sunshine-soaked John Knapick Field told them that more challenges and opportunities are in their future.

The 71-member Class of 2017 received $396,550 in scholarship offers, said Jacquelyn Hampton, high school principal, adding, “I’m very proud of them.”

Graduates Jodie Johnson and Estrella Gomez praised the diversity and family-like atmosphere at Campbell High.

“I like it that everybody is from different backgrounds,” said Jodie, who plans to enlist in the Air Force and train in the medical field.

“We’re all one big family at Campbell High, no matter what the color,” said Estrella, who plans to start college at Eastern Gateway and then move to Florida and earn a bachelor of nursing degree.

“My time at Campbell High was life-changing,” said Emmett Poole, a recipient of the President’s Award for Academic Achievement.

“You learn respect for your parents and other people around you. My choir teacher was more like a friend I could go to for advice. My football coach since middle school was always there for me,” said Emmett, who plans to study civil engineering at Youngstown State University and then enlist in the Air Force and make that his career.

Giovanni Bruno, whose grandfather, John Bruno, is a former Campbell schools superintendent, plans to major in nursing at YSU with a minor in military science and graduate as a second lieutenant through the ROTC program.

The third-generation Campbell High graduate said he started in Campbell schools, left for another school district, then came back to keep the family tradition going. “You can take the boy out of Campbell but you can never take Campbell out of the boy,” he said.

Commencement speaker Capt. William J. Toti, a 1974 Campbell High graduate, agreed with Giovanni, saying that his education at Campbell High was “all I needed to succeed in college and in life.”

Toti graduated from the Naval Academy in 1979, received numerous post-graduate degrees, was nominated by the Navy as an astronaut mission specialist in 1987. He was on duty at the Pentagon during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Toti, who retired from the Navy in 2006 and subsequently was an award-winning leader in several civilian businesses, called Campbell “the foundation of my life. I found that I would return periodically to remember my friends and teachers,” he said.

“You can’t control who you are, but you can control what you do with the rest of your life. Nothing could be more important,” Toti said.

“I wasn’t very popular in school. I wasn’t cool, but I’m cool now,” he said.

In her address, Salutatorian Allison Cerech called commencement “one of the most significant days in our lives. We stand at a turning point, but we have made friendships at Campbell High that will last a lifetime.”

“Thanks for coming to see me and the rest of us, whom I consider family, graduate,” said Paul Tropea, class president. “They have touched my life at some point with their intelligence and bravery. I will always consider them brothers and sisters,” he said of his classmates.

Samantha Koullias, valedictorian and class treasurer, thanked Campbell High School for “giving us the resources to follow our dreams and our parents and families for nurturing and supporting us.”

And to her classmates, Samantha said: “It was a great joy to grow and learn beside you. We grew to love Campbell High and made many new memories and friendships.”

“We are about to receive our diplomas, our passport into the real world. Now, we need to take the initiative and grasp the opportunities available to us,” she said.