Proud moment for MHMMG scholarship winners

Stanford, Santa Clara, UC Berkeley, Ohio State, Oregon State, Cal Poly, Georgetown, Baylor, San Diego.
Those were just a few of the college destinations of the more than 50 scholarship recipients announced during a special presentation before an admiring crowd on the second day of the 37th annual Morgan Hill Mushroom Mardi Gras.
“Those kids are outstanding,” said longtime MHMMG Scholarship Committee Treasurer Ron Woolf, a retired educator and one of three school board trustees in attendance Sunday. “The list just gets better and better every year. Everybody should just be extremely proud of these kids.”
The very essence of the Mardi Gras is the funds generated for the scholarship program, which has awarded more than $1 million to 1,026 local high school students since 1984.
Ohio State University-bound Randall Coaquira, 17, who will be walking at the June 3 graduation ceremony at Live Oak High School, has volunteered at MHMMG over the years and learned to appreciate all that goes on behind the scenes to make the event such a success.
“It was great (to learn that I won a scholarship),” said Coaquira, who plans to study microbiology in college. “It’s great that they are able to provide funds to those who need it.”
This year, the selection committee received about 260 applications and chose 50 deserving Live Oak and Sobrato high school students as well as three worthy Central High School graduates and one Community Adult Education student based on a combination of academic performance, community and school service, and need.
Soon-to-be Sobrato graduate Janelle Saucedo, 17, is off to University of California at Riverside, where she plans to study biological sciences. She has made it a tradition to volunteer at the MHMMG as well.
“It’s just amazing,” said Saucedo, who, like all scholarship entrants, had to win over the selection panel during the interview portion of the program. “It was very nerve-racking, but I was prepared for it.”
Two $1,000 community service scholarships were added in 2016 in honor of Brad Spencer, the founding father of the MHMMG who passed away last summer. Those recipients were Sobrato’s Annalicia Anaya and Live Oak’s Ivan Gonzalez.
In a special moment between musical acts on the amphitheater stage and before hundreds of festival-goers, the scholarship recipients held up different colored t-shirts from their many college destinations.
Central’s Cristian Ramirez, 19, is already enrolled in classes at Gavilan College, where he plans to earn his Associate’s degree and then head to a four-year university.
“I felt lucky. I felt excited. I felt proud,” said Ramirez of being named a MHMMG scholarship winner. “Central, the principal, the staff, that’s what put me on track. They know what they are doing. I made it to graduation. I’m just really thankful for all they did for me.”
Live Oak HS recipients
Marla Altamirano, Kiele Anderson, Ana Arias, Amber Bearden, Genevieve Black, Megan Carrillo, Randall Coaguira, Samantha Coley, Frances Giba, Ivan Gonzalez, Amy Gunther, Elsa Jimenez, Andrew Kim, Irene Kuang, Julia Leal, Shang-Chi Andrew Liu, Emerson Neet, Jocelyn Orta, Samantha Sadoff, Lifen Shi, Anna Snyder, Ida Tan, Tiffany Vu, Andrew Welch
Sobrato HS recipients
Annalicia Anaya, Leslie Aparicio, Zuha Aslam, Adrianna Baldwin, Madison Bleeg, Christine Chau, Jessica Crane, Yasmine Daneshvar, Taylor Dinh, Simar Dhillon, Kaden Foster, Brianna Havens, Irys Herrera, Jahne Hill, Natalie Kuwatani, Josephine Ngo, Syviann Nguyen, Karly Rebozzi, Arthur Rodriguez, Janelle Saucedo, Moriah Silva, Keana Skurla, Kayla Torres, Dennis Vu, Megan Yabumoto
Central HS recipients
Araceli Hernandez, Jerry Juarez, Christian Ramirez