1,400 graduate from Santa Rosa Junior College

Tony Sawyer was a uniquely proud papa Saturday as his daughter stood to receive her diploma at Santa Rosa Junior College.

Unlike the throngs of family and friends watching from afar, Sawyer was right beside his daughter Danielle as she and the other graduates made their way to the stage. That’s because he was a grad, too, having at last completed a computer science education that he had started two decades before.

“I couldn’t be prouder of her,” Sawyer said of 22-year-old Danielle, who in September will start at UC Davis with a goal of becoming a physician/medical researcher.

Sawyer, 48, noted that he has been both a full-time student and full-time employee at the junior college for the past year and a half. As such, the best part of his day was: “It’s done!”

The Sawyers joined hundreds of graduates who crossed the outdoor stage and entered a new chapter of life Saturday as the junior college held its 96th annual commencement ceremony.

Seated beneath the campus’s towering oaks, the grads were “surrounded by a circle of love,” college President Frank Chong said in reference to the assembled family and friends.

The event celebrated the accomplishments of 1,400 grads, only a portion of whom took part Saturday.

Along with congratulatory remarks, the event’s speakers acknowledged the elders in their own lives and challenged the grads to go forth and help make the world a better place.

“It’s time for our generation to step up,” said state Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, an SRJC alumnus who at age 35 is one of the youngest members of the Legislature.

McGuire paid tribute to his grandmother, “a hard-nosed rancher” from Healdsburg, who took his mom and him in after his parents’ divorce. And he praised both mother and grandmother for instilling in him the idea “to always fight to make sure that your best days are still ahead.”

Similarly, student speaker Elias Tekle Hinit, who will attend UC Berkeley this fall, asked his listeners to acknowledge those staff members who maintain the college’s facilities and grounds, “my father being one of them.” He noted several areas of injustice in today’s world and called on the grads to advance with “a profound sense of responsibility in the future.”

The sense of gratitude to family extended after the ceremony ended. Graduate Rogelio Maravilla Jr., an alum of Santa Rosa’s Piner High School, took time after a series of photographs with well-wishers to reflect on “how much hard work my parents put in” to make his graduation possible.

Maravilla will study criminal justice this fall at Sacramento State University with a goal of becoming both a federal agent and a bridge between law enforcement and the Latino community. As a first-generation college student, he credited the help of his immigrant parents, Rogelio Maravilla Sr. and Virginia Maravilla Zamora.

“I can’t thank them enough,” he said.

As for dad/grad Tony Sawyer, he said he started his computer science education in the 1990s but never finished a degree once he found employment in information technology (IT), including 19 years with the junior college.

After years of working for his degree, he learned halfway through this year that he would still be a class short of the needed credits “and wouldn’t be able to graduate with my daughter.”

However, he found an extra course in time, and his boss at the college rearranged the work schedule so he could get the needed units and walk Saturday beside his daughter.

“It was just incredible to find out that I could,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @rdigit.