California Area graduation Wednesday
California Area High School will confer its senior students with diplomas during commencement exercises Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the high school auditorium. Admission is by ticket only. Principal Charles Geyer, Superintendent Dr. Marian B. Stephens and school board president Budd Grebb will address the class. Class president Lindsey Popelas also will address her class.
Jessica Ruth Furnier, daughter of Daniel and Vicki Furnier of Coal Center, is valedictorian.
She has participated in school activities such as county and district band, the groundwater steering committee, yearbook staff, Science Olympiad and Environmental Club.
She is the captain of the tennis team and the drum line.
She was chosen as Rotary student of the month for September and won the Rachel Carson Book Award. Furnier also received first place at Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science and the psychology bowl.
She participates in the STAR biology program and won the PTA Reflections contest and the Washington County Juvenile Court System essay contest.
After graduation, Furnier plans to attend Duquesne University, where she has received the Chancellor’s Scholarship, and major in biology.
The salutatorian is Justin David McCrory, son of Bruce and Kathy McCrory.
In school, he serves as secretary of student council and a member of the groundwater steering committee, Environmental Club, Students Against Driving Drunk and the National Honor Society.
He also was chosen as October’s Rotary student of the month and starred in the title role in the class musical “Bye Bye Birdie” this year. Out of school, McCrory is a volunteer firefighter at California Volunteer Fire Department and an EMT for Brownsville Ambulance Service Inc.
After graduation, he will enter the U.S. Marine Corps and upon returning will attend California University of Pennsylvania.
In addition to the members of its senior class, the high school also will award a diploma to World War II veteran James F. Rohaley.