Fifty-one graduate from Woodside Priory School Fifty-one graduate from Woodside Priory School (June 09, 2004)

Woodside Priory School celebrated the graduation of the Class of 2004 on May 29 with an outdoor procession led by bagpipers, followed by graduates in caps and gowns and the gowned faculty.

After speeches, awards, presentation of diplomas to 51 graduates and a short reception on the basketball court, the event concluded with a reception for graduates and guests in the gym.

Speaking at the graduation were seniors Laura Brent and Alexis Smith, both of Portola Valley.

Guest speaker was filmmaker and producer Jerry Zucker, whose work includes comedy classics such as "My Best Friend's Wedding," "Rat Race," "Airplane," "Naked Gun" and "Hot Shots."

Mr. Zucker offered students some advice, based on his experience after college: Think about the future, but don't live in it.

"I work in a business where almost everyone is waiting for the next big thing," he said. "Sometimes it comes, and sometimes it doesn't. But it doesn't matter that your dream came true if you spent your whole life waiting."

More advice: Have the courage to fail big in pursuit of big goals, and not be too worried about what other people think. If you have a vision of a better way to do something, don't be afraid to shout out your idea, he added.

Woodside Priory School's graduates are:

B-F Brigitte Hale Bradford, Laura Gayle Brent (with honors), Gretchen Mullaugh Burch, Renato Jo Castaneda, Yong Ho Cho (with honors) Kimberly Lauren Chow,; Philip K. Chu, Lauren Abigail Clapper, Allyn Elizabeth Coats, James Michael Eaneman, Jr., Theodore Andrew Finlay, Conor James Fitzpatrick (with honors), William Walz Flammer

G-M Evan Andrew Green (with honors), Bertram Jay Haine, Julianne Elisabeth Henderson, Michael Lee Jernick, Leon Ajayi Johnson, Jinho Kim, Zoltan Klarik, Ashley Yasemin Kustu (with honors), Young Joon Lee, Travis Otto Maahs, Alice Elizabeth Muelling MacKay (with honors), Charles Richard Magnuson, Aaron Richard Mandle (with honors); Abigail Christina Mills, Sean Stephane Jordan Moreau (with honors)

N-S Katie Anna Noice (with honors), Megan Christina Noice (with honors), Samantha Nuttall, Sharaf Taiyab Rizvi (with honors), George Fredrick Schnurle IV (with honors), Cheng-Yu (Jerry) Shih (with honors), Alexis Lauren Smith (with honors), Andrew Harris Smith (with honors), Dong Soo Sohn Andrew, Michael Souter, Alexander Sproch, Kevin Lewis Stasun

T- Z Bryan Joseph Tehaney (with honors), Lori Mariko Teraoka (with honors), Lenka Vankova, Nicole Brownstone Verhalen (with honors), Gardner Thomas Waterman, Stephanie Graziella Wegman, Ashley Elizabeth Will, Li-Yuan Yu, Maria Regina M. Yujuico (with honors), Alejandro Peter Zaffaroni (with honors), Yin Zhang.

Woodside Priory School, a private Benedictine college preparatory school for grades 6-12, was founded in Portola Valley in 1957.

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