Community

For more than four decades, Bob and Maureen Hunt have known exactly where they’ll be for the Fourth of July weekend: here in Morgan Hill.

School district officials used drones and live streaming at Live Oak and Sobrato High School graduation ceremonies last week to capture the memories of the Class of 2017.

Father’s Day weekend is starting off with a sizzle as temperatures are expected to reach the mid 90’s today, climb into the high 90s by Saturday and stick around the rest of next week, according to the National Weather Service.

Jeannette Close has been named the associate publisher at New SV Media and will head up all advertising and circulation at the Morgan Hill Times, the Gilroy Dispatch and the Hollister Free Lance. She is based out of the Gilroy Dispatch office in downtown Gilroy.“The next five years are going to be explosive. There is a lot going on in South Valley and San Benito County and I am excited to join the SV Media family as we are about to expand and grow alongside the communities we call home,” said Close. Close began her career in community journalism in San Diego more than 20 years ago and then travelled north, where she joined Silicon Valley Community Newspapers as advertising manager, later becoming its associate publisher after it was sold. Most recently, Close headed up the advertising operations at the Press Banner in Scotts Valley and the San Lorenzo Valley.  “I love the direct contact you get with the community at local newspapers,” said Close, who used to collect newspapers from around the world when she was a 13-year-old kid in her hometown of Peoria, Illinois. “It’s great when people come into the office to talk about stories we’ve written and to learn how our reporting has made a difference to them.”Close looks forward to getting out in the community to meet with local businesses, leaders and newspaper readers. “We are not a big corporation,” said Close. “We are locally owned and each of the papers—Morgan Hill Times, Gilroy Dispatch, Hollister Free Lance—has an important legacy in the communities they serve. We want to provide good journalism and, for our advertisers, an opportunity to reach and tell their story to new and returning customers. We aim to give local businesses an avenue to promote themselves that is within reach financially and takes advantage of all the business development tools we have to offer.”Drop Jeannette Close a line at [email protected].

When  Central High School’s 60 graduates walked the Downtown Amphitheater Stage to receive their diplomas at the June 7 commencement ceremony, nearly all of them knew what their next steps were after leaving high school.

Photographer Robert Eliason shot plenty of photos of Sobrato High School's June 8 commencement ceremony at the school campus in north Morgan Hill.

Photographer Robert Eliason shot plenty of photos of the Live Oak High School graduation ceremony June 8 at Reichert Field in east Morgan Hill.

At the inaugural Morgan Hill Disrupt Forum June 2, investors and consultants banked on which participating startup will be the next to disrupt their respective industries.They also offered their insight into the world of burgeoning technologies via a series of panels and guest speaker presentations, some of whom presented their own visions of how to turn existing economic models on their heads.Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix, is a “perfect example” of someone who is “disrupting the business model,” explained Joint Venture Silicon Valley President Russell Hancock, who was one of the guest speakers at the Disrupt Forum, which took place at Specialized Bicycles headquarters and was sponsored by the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce.Netflix’s model of initially offering a mail-order DVD rental/subscription service, then expanding to streaming thousands of television and movie titles, has destroyed the old system of video rental stores and disc purchases, Hancock continued. The model has transformed not only for the consumers, but also for the producers.“Hollywood is disrupted,” Hancock said.The centerpiece of the all-day Disrupt Forum was the afternoon pitchfest, where entrepreneurs associated with seven startups—most of them from the Bay Area and surrounding region, but including one from Boston, Mass.—got a chance to convince investors they are the next industry disruptor. Or at least gain enough funding and services to continue to grow and promote their businesses.Prizes awarded at the end of the pitchfest included legal and consulting services, advertising credits, office spaces, training and mentoring. These prizes were awarded by a panel of judges—all experienced investors in their own right.All told, more than $120,000 worth of prizes were awarded to various participating startups, according to Danielle Davenport, an investor and one of the Disrupt Forum organizers.The “overall winner” among the startups was WrightGrid, a Boston-based company that offers public, unobtrusive mobile device charging and wi-fi stations. The company is focusing its efforts and expansion in Africa, where hundreds of millions of people own cell phones but where electricity is often scarce, explained WrightGrid founder and CEO Ryan Wright.WrightGrid’s prize from Disrupt Forum investors was a $10,000 “startup business banking package and valuation” from First Republic Bank, represented at the event by Sam Heshmati.Davenport said at the forum that this prize indicates WrightGrid is the “farthest along” and most ready for funding among the seven startups.Gary Jinks, an investor with Morgan Hill based South Valley Angels, awarded entry to a “closed pitch session” with his group to CruzFoam, a startup that makes surfboard foam out of shrimp shells. This product is touted as environmentally cleaner than existing kinds of synthetic surfboard foam, according to one of the company’s founders who pitched at the Disrupt Forum.The theme of the forum was “Innovation Goes Outside,” and many of the participating startups presented technology related to sports and environmental stewardship.Other prizes and winners at the Disrupt Forum include:• $5,000 worth of legal services to CruzFoam, from Wilson Sonsani Goodrich and Rosati.• $40,000 worth of mentorship and other prizes comprising a “startup package” from GWC Innovator Fund to three of the companies that pitched. Winning this prize were PhotoBloomAR, a photo/video processing application that allows users to apply augmented reality to their original media; SuperFanChase, an East Bay-based app that connects sports fans who can participate in a mobile scavenger hunt; and PearlApp, another mobile app that provides “dish level data” to diners looking for specific kinds of food—not just restaurants—when they go out at night.• $1,000 worth of coaching/mentorship from ABC Accelerator to SuperFanChase.• A day of business consulting, worth about $2,500, from Liam Downey, a Morgan Hill resident and president of The Redstone Group, to Archer Components. This startup has created a wireless electronic gear shifter for mountain bicycles.SuperFanChase came away from the Disrupt Forum with a variety of prizes. Company co-founder Bridgett Coates said she and partner Alesia Harris are excited to make use of the mentorship, advertising credits, a future presentation slot before a prominent regional tech meetup and other prizes.Coates said the biggest value of the Disrupt Forum is the experience and expertise offered by the various investors and expert panelists.“Alongside the (prizes), it’s given us an even more expanded opportunity to get closer to our goals,” Coates said. “Now we have a stream of professionals who are capable of helping us to reach our full potential. Every startup is in need of that expertise.”Downey, also one of the Disrupt Forum organizers, estimated about 100 people attended the June 2 event throughout the day. He and other organizers have already thought of improvements needed for the next Disrupt Forum (at a date to be determined), but he was pleased at how it went for their first time.“The people that pitched, they were better than I thought they would be,” said Downey. “I was quite impressed. It just shows the amount of creativity that’s out there. In a forum like this, you see all kinds of ideas.”The event organizers also hope to maintain a long-lasting effort to disrupt traditional industries, preferably to the benefit of Morgan Hill and the immediate surrounding area.“The whole idea of this, long-term, is to stimulate disruption, new ideas (and) incubation of new ideas in and around our locality,” Downey said. “I would have liked to have seen a little bit more local participation.”

A forensic psychologist. A nurse. A firefighter. A botanist. An athletic trainer.

A light rain that drizzled out of the clouds and steadily picked up toward the end of Sobrato High School’s June 8 commencement ceremony didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits, as the graduates, their friends and families continued to belt out a scattered cacophony of cheers and whistles as Assistant Principal Kevin Miller and Counselor Ted Thomas called each student to the podium to receive their diploma.Three hundred fourteen seniors graduated from Sobrato High School’s Class of 2017 at the campus athletic field on Burnett Avenue.Even before the graduating seniors began their procession to their seats in front of the stage to begin the ceremony, the atmosphere in the crowd was festive as the teens’ parents, siblings, grandparents, relatives and friends displayed poster-sized signs depicting their favorite grad and rang cowbells and air horns.“It makes me proud, and it makes me realize how time flies,” said Cindy Vaughan, mother of Sobrato Class of 2017 graduate Dylan Boyd. “It’s surreal, to get to this point where your little baby is grown up and going to be on his own.”Boyd plans to attend Gavilan College in the fall, added Vaughan, who was seated with Dylan’s brother, sister and stepfather.“We wish him the best of luck in his future,” Vaughan added.Scott Thomas had similar feelings about the rapid passage of time, as his daughter Megan Thomas was among Sobrato’s Class of 2017.“Eighteen years went by so fast,” Scott Thomas said of his first and only daughter.Megan plans to attend junior college in the fall, then transfer to a four-year college—hopefully University of Washington, he added. A full schedule of Advanced Placement classes kept Megan busy academically during her four years at Sobrato.“She’s a great student,” Scott Thomas said.Student speeches delivered by Valedictorian Grant Halliday, Salutatorian Benjamin Ankiel and Senior Class President Kiara Lyle combined a mix of vivid high school memories, thanks for their fellow classmates and family members, and a sharing of dreams for their collective futures.“In a few short moments, we will be done with high school forever,” Ankiel said. “We all enjoyed so many great memories together, so let’s take one last moment to remember them all.”He went on to list the variety of careers and occupations the graduates are likely to hold when they grow up: doctors, artists, athletes, scientists—“and perhaps, even astronauts.”Some of the memories over the last four years include a long list of homework, tests, extra-curricular activities, sports games, assemblies and events, noted Lyle.“Many naps had to be cancelled, but great success requires great sacrifice,” Lyle joked.Halliday began his valedictorian’s address with a recollection of American armed forces’ storming of Normandy and other French beaches to begin the country’s involvement in World War Two. He noted that the 73rd anniversary of that day, known as D-Day, was just a couple days before the June 8 graduation ceremony.“Today, we stand here on our own D-Day. We sit on the beachhead of our future, and form a new beginning, a new age. We must dedicate our lives to protecting those ideals that those men at Normandy fought so bravely for,” Halliday said.Reflecting on their last four years together, he later called his fellow graduates the “best friends and best classmates, and some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met.”Halliday closed his speech with a humorous gag that fulfilled a promise from a previous year: on stage, he took a bite of a granola bar that had been in his backpack since he was a freshman at Sobrato. He proclaimed the four-year-old snack was still somewhat tasty.Morgan Hill Unified School District Superintendent Steve Betando called the ceremonious event a “day of achievement, a day of excitement and a day of celebration (but) also a day of determination for your future.”He advised the teens to reflect on and be aware of their “character footprint” as they venture into adulthood and make new professional and personal relationships.“There is nothing more meaningful than the impression you leave with others,” Betando said. He later added, “The value of your character footprint is what really defines you. Be an inspiration to others. Having the ability to inspire others is a gift that should not be lost.”As their commencement ceremony keynote speaker, the graduates chose Sobrato High social studies teacher Tracy Murphy. Before asking the class for their permission to receive an honorary diploma with them, Murphy described the graduates’ lives before them as a kind of choose-your-own-adventure, “do it yourself creation.”“There will be some assembly required,” Murphy said. “You will have to construct your future, but I’d also like you to take a look around and revel in this assembly of supporters who have your back.”Murphy further thanked the class for “allowing me to have one of the greatest careers in the universe.”