East Co-Valedictorian: "East Greatly Prepared me for College"

Cranston East Co-Valedictorian Kristen Bachand is thankful she got to go to .

"I feel that East has greatly prepared me for college," she said in an e-mail message. "Everything I learned there will be important in the next phase of my life."

That phase begins at Brown University in the fall.

When she first went to kindergarten, Michael Jordon was retiring from basketball. It was 1999 and "we were just starting to form our lives when he opted to change his career," Bachand said in her address during last week's class of 2012 graduation at the Providence Performing Arts Center.

Today, Jordan is the owner of a sports team and and the class is "once again taking a leap of faith, the same one we took thirteen years ago," Bachand said.

Bachard graduated with a GPA of 5.006. Only ten thousands of a point separated her and co-valedictorian Adrienne Gendron.

Bachand will be studying marine biology research in the fall. 

Along with several scholarships, Bachand won many awards during her high school career. A member of the National Honor Society, she won their Spirit of Excellence Award. She also won the Rhode Island Higher Education Award and the city's Best and Brightest Award, presented by Mayor Allan W. Fung.

While attending East, Bachand was on the swimming team for four years and served as a captain during her senior year.