This is a printer friendly version of an article from the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune. Posted with the permission.
Back to WRACS

June 2, 2008

Packers chaplain challenges Assumption grads

By Adam Wise
Daily Tribune Staff

The enormity of the moment didn't faze Stephanie Garza until she took two white roses to her parents.

"It didn't really hit me until the end," Garza said, "and I was like, 'This is it.'"

"With the parents, you don't really think about them being there to push you along until they are not there," said Garza, 18, who plans to study nursing at Mid-State Technical College. "It's like, I do need them; and about the teachers, they pushed us along -- you hate it at the time, but then it all pays off in the end."

Garza was one of 44 Assumption High School students to graduate Sunday afternoon. Seniors throughout south Wood County had reason to celebrate Sunday, as Lincoln, Nekoosa and Port Edwards high schools also held their commencement ceremonies.

Graduates can make a difference, said the featured speaker at the Assumption ceremony.

"I just want to challenge them to continue to give to the world, challenge them to realize there's great expectations for our students," said the Rev. James Baraniak, minister at St. Norbert College in Green Bay.

Baraniak, who serves as the chaplain of the Green Bay Packers and the Green Bay Correctional Institution, speaks to audiences ranging from college students to convicted felons to highly paid athletes.

"Sometimes it's very obvious when you're wearing pads and the green and gold to know who you are," Baraniak said. "With students, who are at the prime of their life physically and at the threshold of great promise, you take those uniforms off of us, and we are all the same people. We are in different circumstances, but we all deal with the same issues."

Plans to have Baraniak speak at the graduation ceremony had been in place for more than a year, said Principal Tom Reichenbacher.

"Our students are pretty driven to go to that second step," Reichenbacher said. "He gives our students an idea of, 'Hey, this is what it's going to be like at the next level. You'll still learn a lot and succeed.'"

Family members take pictures while the graduates march in during the Assumption High School 2008 commencement Sunday in Wisconsin Rapids.