There’s No Place Like Home, Say Top Scholars

Good news for Ventura County: A lot of the smart kids want to stick around.

At least 79 students are graduating as valedictorians or top scholars this year, and many of them say they want to stay right here after they finish their college educations.

Family ties, good weather and the beach are three reasons why many valedictorians say they couldn’t conceive of living anywhere else.

“I didn’t used to want to stay here forever,” said Suzanne Reuben, on her way to UCLA, and one of six valedictorians at Thousand Oaks High School. “But during Christmas break, it was 40 degrees here and I was freezing. I could never live somewhere else.”

That doesn’t mean they are homebodies.

“I want to travel a lot. I want to go to Europe someday, and to India or Micronesia,” said Heather Hultgen, valedictorian at Nordhoff High School in Ojai. “But after I’ve lived here, I don’t think I could live anywhere else.”

You don’t have to be a valedictorian to see the reasons to stick around.

“I really like it here. You’ve got the beach on one side and the mountains on the other,” said Ben LeBow of Thousand Oaks High School. “I’ll be looking to come back here” after graduating from Duke.

For many of those same reasons, some local valedictorians are choosing colleges close to home, such as UC Santa Barbara. Even some of those headed across the country, to schools such as Duke, Notre Dame and Harvard, envision an eventual return west.

But not all.

Jeff Baltruzak of Westlake High School is headed to Notre Dame and says he has no idea if he will end up back in Ventura County.

“I’ll go wherever the wind takes me,” he said. “I like new experiences, a little adventure now and then.”

Of about 20 valedictorians interviewed by The Times, computer programming, electronics and biomedical studies were cited most often as possible career goals.

Hultgen hopes to combine the practical with the altruistic when she studies at UC Santa Barbara.

“I’m interested in biomedical engineers who design pacemakers and the like,” she said. “It seems like an expanding field, and of course it helps people.”

Claudia Felix, Fillmore High School’s valedictorian, also hopes to help people after she graduates from UC Santa Barbara, but quite apart from her goal in engineering. Perhaps more important to her is returning to Fillmore and volunteering in the community, working with kids or at a women’s shelter.

As in past years, the number of valedictorians continues to swell, with schools casting an ever-wider net around students excelling in advanced placement classes.

When Simi Valley’s Royal High School awarded him his shiny valedictory medal, David Shin was standing there to receive it. And so were Ryan Cornner, Elizabeth Dickinson, Monica Rodriguez, Abigail Oliver and 28 other scholars with grade-point averages well above the 4.0 mark.

In the Conejo Valley and Simi Valley school districts, officials have adopted a system in which any student garnering a 4.0 grade-point average or above gets a spot on the valedictory rolls.

This cuts down on competition, the schools say, and gives advanced placement students, who get a 5.0 for each AP class, a wider slate of class options.

That’s because if two straight-A students took the same number of weighted honors and advanced placement classes, they would have the same grade-point average. But if one took an additional elective, such as art, which is worth only a 4.0, that student would have a lower average.

The result, some administrators say, would be competition for advanced placement classes, and less academic freedom as scholars attempt to outdo each other.

While most Ventura County schools still stick to the tradition of one valedictorian--and Ventura and Buena high schools in Ventura don’t name one at all--many local valedictorians seem to think the more the merrier. It’s a matter of hard work, not natural smarts, they say.

“Everyone’s very deserving,” said LeBow of Thousand Oaks High. “People who aren’t in AP classes deserve to be valedictorian as much as anyone else.”

Toss images of pasty-faced library drones aside. Many of the county’s valedictorians have interests outside the classroom ranging from sports to drama.

“School is important, but you can’t learn most of your life through that,” said Camarillo High’s Vishal Patel, who is headed to UC San Diego. “If I can go play hockey, I’ll go play hockey.”

Sujey Cuan of Simi Valley High School rides horses. Her classmate, Jeanette Quick, is a poet. Heather Hultgen likes to snowboard.

While many admit they have had their eyes on the valedictorian prize for years, they haven’t let it disrupt their lives. Maybe they worked a little harder. Maybe they got a little less sleep. But the experiences, they say, were not the grinds some might perceive them to have been.

“At school I’m quiet, but outside I’m hyper and spontaneous. Most people don’t know that about me,” said Allison Stokka of Westlake High School. “Whenever I talk to people, they say, ‘Oh, you’re a valedictorian. You must have studied so hard,’ and I say, ‘Well, not really . . . ‘ “

They are, for the most part, no different from other students, they say. “I try to be as normal as possible. I didn’t give up a lot to be where I am,” said Simi Valley High’s Alexandria Ingraham, who is headed to USC.

“I worked very hard, but I had a normal high school experience. I did what I needed to do, took weekends off. I look back, and I don’t regret anything.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Class of 1999 Valedictorians

Conejo Valley High School

Arin Hill

Newbury Park High School

Karin Alexandra Bruch

Monami Chakrabarti

Bryan Matthew Friedman

Rachel Maximo

Jennifer Melissa Mihaly

Thousand Oaks High School

Elena Allen

Daniel Babouta

Benjamin LeBow

Jennifer Lin

Leah Porter

Peymon Rahgozar

Suzanne Reuben

Westlake High School

Jeff Baltruzak

Joyce K. Hwang

Jeanette Marie Kamell

Jaclyn Melissa Kansky

Jennifer Lynn Matthews

Kathleen M. Rozner

Allison June Stokka

Fillmore High School

Claudia Suzie Felix

Moorpark High School

Mitul Patel

Nordhoff High School

Heather Hultgen

Adolfo Camarillo High School

Dennis Hsieh

Vishal Patel

Channel Islands High School

Gary Cunanan

Tabitha Parker

Hueneme High School

Norman Pia

Oxnard High School

Mina An

Livia Borak

Handri Liong

Seema Patel

Rio Mesa High School

Jaime Blois

Stephanie Chiang

Rachelle Gould

Marleen Mahan

Santa Paula High School

Megan Pidduck

Royal High School

Lauren Barnes

Philipp Boehm-Sturm

Stephen Boshear

Latisha Burnaugh

Stephanie Chu

Jennifer Conte

Ryan Cornner

Kristin Crosley

Brian D’Anna

Elizabeth Dickinson

Adam Feit

John-Paul Gratchalian

Jacob Gisel

Yasmine Gruen

Soren Harrison

Matthew Janousek

Donald Knips

David Krasnow

Colleen Kreutner

Miroslav Kudela

Jennifer Murvin

Abigail Oliver

Brock Ramirez

Monica Rodriguez

Ingrid Salazar

Sarah Salazar

Sarah Schumann

David Shin

Daniel Stack

Adrienne Trager

Simran Ubhi

Michael Welch

Randy Wong

Simi Valley High School

Carl Olson

Jeanette Quick

Alexandria Ingraham

Brian Onderdonk

Kristal Pollack

Sujey Cuan

Matthew Nichols

Gregory Arnsdorf

El Camino High School

Katie Potter