Capacity crowd joins with students in celebration at Mabery Pavilion
According to the press release by Yavapai Community College, Eighty Verde Campus students participated in an evening commencement ceremony at the Mabery Pavilion on Friday evening, May 5. The students were joined by a capacity crowd of friends and family including proud parents, spouses, and their children.
The press release commented that “Student commencement speaker Yerania Rodriguez-Ibarra delivered one of the evening’s most poignant moments when she thanked her mother for making her achievements possible. “My mother gave up her whole life in Mexico to give her children the opportunities she didn’t have,” said Rodriguez-Ibarra. “We started from zero. It was a tough transition and I complained. I don’t complain anymore. It is because of her that I have now graduated from college.”
“After arriving in the U.S. only 12 years ago, Rodriguez-Ibarra overcame a language barrier and her family’s financial stress to earn All Arizona Academic team honors and the President’s Award for Excellence, the college’s highest honor.
“It is hard to imagine only a few years ago I was in high school, skipping classes, not worrying about the future,” Rodriguez-Ibarra told the audience, adding, “But I had a dream and an ambition so great it would not allow me to remain stagnant. I had to develop myself to be better and to overcome my fear and doubt.”
“The first-generation college student also thanked her English professor, Dr. Barb Waak, and advisor Linda Evans, noting that both women “helped shape me into the person I am today.”
“The Northern Arizona University-bound Rodriguez-Ibarra plans to pursue a career in dentistry on a full-scholarship and urged her classmates to keep Yavapai College in their hearts. “Occasionally stop, look back and wave to those who have shown us the way.”
Source: Yavapai Community College press release.