{"id":38608,"date":"2014-06-12T04:00:26","date_gmt":"2014-06-11T18:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=38608"},"modified":"2014-06-12T04:00:26","modified_gmt":"2014-06-11T18:00:26","slug":"lizama-pineda-hailed-kagman-highs-top-graduates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/lizama-pineda-hailed-kagman-highs-top-graduates\/","title":{"rendered":"Lizama, Pineda hailed as Kagman High\u2019s top graduates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kagman High School bestowed its highest academic excellence awards yesterday on two of its outstanding students\u2014Ezra Lizama and Jace Pineda\u2014who emerged as this year\u2019s class valedictorian and salutatorian, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Along with his parent and guardians, Lizama received the prestigious Board of Education award after being named top of the graduating class. Lizama, the son of Shirley and the late Ben Lizama, was also the recipient of six other special awards.<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-38608 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/lizama-pineda-hailed-kagman-highs-top-graduates\/jace-pineda-mug\/'>Jace-Pineda-mug<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-38610'>\n\t\t\t\tJACE PINEDA\nSalutatorian\nCommissioner\u2019s Award\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/lizama-pineda-hailed-kagman-highs-top-graduates\/ezra-lizama-mug\/'>Ezra-Lizama-mug<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-38611'>\n\t\t\t\tEZRA LIZAMA\nValedictorian\nBoard of Education Award\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>Pineda, the class salutatorian and recipient of the Commissioner of Education Award for 2014, is the daughter of Elmer and Tess Pineda. Like Lizama, Pineda was also presented with five other special awards, including outstanding female graduate.<\/p>\n<p>In their joint address before hundreds of spectators and guests, Lizama and Pineda honored their parents, guardians, teachers, and loved ones. <\/p>\n<p>In an interview with Saipan Tribune, Pineda said she plans to enroll at Northern Marianas College before transferring to the University of Guam to pursue biology and then on to the United States to become a doctor. <\/p>\n<p>Lizama, meantime, will be flying soon to the U.S. mainland to pursue computer science.<\/p>\n<p>KHS conferred diplomas to 141 seniors in a ceremony with the theme \u201cKeeping true to the dreams of our youth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s Top Ten awardees are Lizama, Pineda, Michaelle Marie Mu\u00f1a, Justin Arangorin, Nonglak Kapileo, Kristine Marie Babauta, Mona Monique Indalecio, Lou Shrine Guevarra, Dorothy Jebehn, and Andrea Juanette Camacho.<\/p>\n<p>Lt. Gov. Jude U. Hofschneider and members of the Legislature bestowed the prestigious Governor\u2019s Leadership Award on Kristine Marie Babauta, while the Principal\u2019s Award went to Lorielyn Monica Lacay.<\/p>\n<p>The Board of Education and the Public School System presented the Service Recognition Award on Michaelle Marie Mu\u00f1a for serving as the students\u2019 representative on the education board.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Class accomplishments<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Education Commissioner Dr. Rita A. Sablan disclosed yesterday that all 141 graduates of KHS this year are the same number of students who entered the school some four years ago. <\/p>\n<p>In this year\u2019s batch of graduates, 95 have been accepted to college and universities, she said. Twenty-nine of them have confirmed going to college off-island. A large number this year also made the decision to join the military and 26 of them are ready to go. <\/p>\n<p>Based on the school\u2019s exit polls, 13 students want to work after graduation, while 17 are undecided about their plans after graduation.<\/p>\n<p>According to KHS principal Leila Staffler, this year\u2019s batch of graduates has also been very productive as they logged a combined 6,000-plus hours of community service. <\/p>\n<p>Also, three seniors finished before the fourth quarter; five juniors are graduating early; and several students already have been offered jobs because of their participation in the Cooperative Program.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday\u2019s commencement rites was keynoted by teacher Gerard VanGills and was graced by members of the Legislature and education officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kagman High School bestowed its highest academic excellence awards yesterday on two of its outstanding&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":38610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[37,968,262,38],"class_list":["post-38608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-education-2","tag-khs","tag-northern-marianas-college","tag-saipan-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}