Saint Mary's Graduates 146 in Year 149

Posted by Jeanne Gray Loughman

The 149^th Senior Class of Saint Mary’s College High School celebrated with family and friends at two special events this past weekend: their Baccalaureate Mass in the school auditorium on Saturday evening and commencement at U.C. Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall on Sunday morning.

During Sunday’s graduation ceremony, the school community paid a moving tribute to the family of George Becker; the family was in attendance to celebrate the graduation of senior Alfonso Garcia.

Becker, a Lincoln, California resident who died in January 2010 at age 22, was the organ donor for Alfonso, diagnosed at that same time with a rare genetic liver disease and given only 48 hours to live. After Alfonso at a Giants game in summer 2011, the two families , and together shared Alfonso’s graduation from Saint Mary’s on Sunday. The entire gathering at Zellerbach Hall rose to their feet to say “thank you” to George Becker’s family. Garcia is the last of the three Garcia brothers of Pinole to graduate from Saint Mary’s. He will attend the University of San Francisco.

Also among the graduates is Miss Paulina Avila-Martinez, named earlier this spring as one of 1,000 seniors nationwide to receive a Gates Millennium Scholarship.  Paulina was accepted to Saint Mary’s College, Mills College, U.C. Santa Cruz, USF, and Dominican University, and will attend USF in the fall.

The 146 class members were joined by 30 men from the Class of 1962 and their spouses celebrating their fifty-year reunion from the Berkeley Catholic school at Peralta Park. Two of the men traveled from Mexico for the event; both had been resident students at the Peralta Park campus for their four years of high school.  To put the Class of 1962 in perspective time-wise, Saint Mary's had been at its North Berkeley location (the third site in school history) for only 35 years when they graduated.  The school will mark 85 years at the campus this August.

Congratulations to the Class of 2012 – artists, musicians, actors, athletes, learners, leaders, friends, faith-filled young men and women.  Saint Mary’s, Hail!