High school graduates look toward next chapter
This weekend’s graduation ceremonies bring down the curtain on a 12-year educational production for the high school Class of 2015, but it is really only the end of Act 1. Whether it is on to junior college, a four-year university, a trade school, the military or training at a new job, many Petaluma area high school graduates will continue their education.
Three students from three different Petaluma high schools are headed in different directions. But for each, the road seems pointed toward success.
Joey Wertz, St. Vincent de Paul High School
High School can be difficult, especially for students carrying a load of difficult academic classes and competing for entrance into top colleges and universities, but it is not brain surgery. However, for graduating St. Vincent de Paul High School senior Joey Wertz, that is exactly what he hopes high school will prepare him for.
The Harvard University-bound Wertz plans on some day being a brain surgeon, or perhaps a neurosurgeon. Even before he graduates on Sunday, he has critical care experience, volunteering in the emergency room at Petaluma Valley Hospital. The 18-year-old began volunteering at the hospital in his junior year and, when he turned 17, he was able to help in the emergency department. He specifically requested to work on Saturday nights when the department was likely to be the busiest.
“I wanted to be exposed to critical care,” Wertz says. “I wanted to make sure being a doctor was what I wanted. Working at the hospital confirmed that was what I wanted to do. I met a lot of great people on the staff and the patients. Working at the hospital is one of the top reasons I want to pursue medicine. It was really inspirational.”
Although Wertz has a 4.47 grade point average and a long list of extra-curricular activities that include captaining Relay for Life teams and serving as Student Body President, he wasn’t initially accepted into Harvard, but was placed on a waiting list.
As he made alternative plans, he got the good news that he had been granted admission.
“I was more than excited,” he says. “It seems surreal. To think I will be going to a college known all over the world is really exciting.”
When he isn’t studying, helping with student government, volunteering at the hospital and doing many other activities, Wertz finds time to be an outstanding athlete.
He was a key member of a St. Vincent golf team that had a 92-2 record during his four seasons on the team.
“It was fun beating some pretty big schools,” he says, pointing out that St. Vincent defeated most of the Empire’s larger schools while playing in the Bennett Valley and Ukiah tournaments.
He also ran for the St. Vincent cross country team and completed the San Francisco half marathon with several of his St. Vincent teammates and other friends.
“It was fun, but I put in quite a bit of training to get ready,” he says of his distance run.
Wertz is what might be called a St. Vincent de Paul native, advancing from St. Vincent Elementary School to the high school. For him, the experience has been both fun and rewarding.
“I have really enjoyed my time at St. Vincent,” he says. “It has given us (the graduates) plenty of resources to help us reach our potential.”
He has also appreciated being a part of a small school. “I know everyone. I can start up a conversation with anyone in my class and feel comfortable.”
He is the son of John Wertz and Suzanne Porter. When he is not at the hospital, studying, running, playing golf or planning his future, Wertz can be found helping at his father’s Fourth and Sea restaurant.
Steven Pozzi, Petaluma High School
Petaluma High School graduate Steven Pozzi, 17, not only wants to carry on his family’s ranching tradition, but also to stamp his own mark on Sonoma County Agriculture.
Pozzi is now the fifth generation of his family to be involved in area agriculture, and he is as earnest as he is articulate about the responsibilities of ranching in a changing world.
“We need to minimize input and maximize output using techniques that will make us more effective in everything we do,” he says.
To learn those techniques, he will continue his education at Fresno State University, where he will major in agricultural business.
Pozzi’s family - which includes father, Martin; mother, Sally; and sister, Regina, who is studying at the University of California, Berkeley - owns a beef and sheep ranch near Tomales, along with a trucking company in Petaluma. He attended St. Vincent Elementary School through the eighth grade, but chose Petaluma High for his secondary education, primarily because of its agriculture and FFA program.
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