Editor’s note: The Auburn Reporter salutes some of the best graduating seniors from each of the school district’s four high schools. The top boy and girl graduates were selected by their respective schools.

Spencer Darrington’s freshman year at Auburn High School was tough.

At that time he wasn’t exactly inclined to do what his teachers told him to do.

“I didn’t really want to go to school,” Darrington said. “I was rebellious and ended up failing.”

There was trouble at home, too.

“My parents split up, and mom and I and my sisters were left on our own. We had a tough time getting back on our feet and creating a livable environment for my little sister,” said Darrington.

His mother, Cindy suggested West Auburn, Auburn’s alternative high school.

Wise mother.

Four years later, Darrington, 18, is poised to graduate near the top of his class of 17. The prospects for his future look very bright, and he will sally forth into the world with a truckload of optimism and confidence that has grown by leaps and bounds.

What made the difference for this soft-spoken, friendly young man was teachers who could look beyond the troubled exterior and see what he had in him, advisors who wouldn’t accept anything but his absolute best, and fellow students who took him in immediately.

“Coming from a school where there were 1,000 people in the hallway between classes to another where you had 100 kids, it was kind of a shock to see how close the students were and all the staff,” Darrington recalled. “It was like a big family when I got here. Teachers helped me out, the student populace showed me how to act in the school and where my classes were. It was the students who really helped me get the most out of school.”

Darrington recounted challenges along the way that worked to his benefit.

“I used to play sports, football, wrestling, track but I had a knee injury,” Darrington said. “I tore my miniscus in my left knee and blew out my right knee entirely. Since those injuries, I’ve had to focus more on things with my mind as opposed to my body. Instead of saying, ‘I am going to grow up and play college football,’ I had to rethink some of the plans I had. That forced me to take a good look at myself and other strengths beside sports.”

And in that rethinking process, Darrington discovered something important — a love for learning.

Soon he found within himself a passion for writing, and for computers and Web editing. He plans to be a graphic designer when he finishes his future studies at the Seattle Art Institute. In the long term, he wants to teach computer classes at an alternative high school like the one that helped turn his life around.

For the immediate future, Darrington will work and, hopefully, cobble together enough scholarships and money to afford the $82,000 he will need for his college education.

He cannot say enough about the teachers and staff, especially Colleen Rayburn, West Auburn High School career and technical education teacher, and his advisor, Robert Fasso.

“Colleen really cares about her students,” said Darrington. “The first few weeks I turned in assignments, and they were good, then I started slacking off a little bit. At that point she took me aside and said, ‘You know, this isn’t going to fly because I’ve seen the work you can actually do, and I’ve seen tests you took when you first got in here, and you can do a lot better than this.’ At first I just got tired hearing her talk about it. But she was a stickler and stayed on me, made me work harder.”

Fasso sat down with him the first few weeks of school.

“I was still kind of shy and off on my own and didn’t do a lot of work. He talked with me, gave me a better feel of the school and told me a little more about himself. He connected with me a little more on a personal level and made me open up a bit more. It made me a lot more inclined to actually take direction from him because I knew him as a person as well. I think it’s good for teachers to connect with students,” Darrington said.

Liliana Morales

When Liliana Morales accepts her diploma June 13, she’ll be thinking of her beloved mother, who passed away in bed next to her four years ago, felled by a heart attack at 32.

Morales is certain that Maria Elena Liera, would “be crying with happiness” to see her baby girl graduate from West Auburn High school.

Morales will be the first in her family to go that far. But she’ll do much more. Next winter Liliana begins her studies at Green River Community College, then it’s on to Central Washington University where she will earn her degree in history.

Her ambition is to teach history at an alternative high school.

Such a change from four years ago, when the young Auburn woman appeared to be on the road to nowhere

“My first semester as a freshman at Auburn High School was pretty good with good grades,” Morales recalled. “In the second, I got into skipping, going to the mall. I made a lot of dumb decisions. I couldn’t stop skipping; it became like an addiction to me. It got to the point where I missed almost a full year of school.”

The district moved her to West Auburn. At first she wanted no part of it.

“Like everybody else, I thought it was a school for all the losers and druggies and everything,” Morales said. “I came here thinking that I was going go back to AHS and graduate. But I started liking the teachers here. To me, they were nicer than the teachers at the other school. Two teachers here convinced me to stay.”

Her world began to expand.

Morales got involved with ASB. Last year she served as ASB secretary, this year she was ASB president and treasurer of the school’s community service club.

She became, she said, the kid “with the eyes and ears wide open during lectures,” lapping up knowledge.

“I decided that I love history and that I wanted to make a change in someone’s life like the teachers here did for me, a positive change. I want to teach a variety of historical subjects, not just world history or global issues. I learn lessons from history. It’s interesting how we evolved and bettered our country. I love studying World War II and the Holocaust, because that was a hard time, and it’s interesting to me. I never get tired of it. Franklin Rooselevelt is my favorite president. I love learning knew things about him.”

Not that there weren’t times when she didn’t consider throwing in the towel. In her senior year she discovered she was pregnant. Her due date is tomorrow. People told her to drop out.

“At the beginning of this year I had some really personal problems and I had felt like dropping out. But I talked to my older sister and she had dropped out and wasn’t able to come back to school because she’s older and wasn’t accepted back. I didn’t want to have those regrets she did. I always wanted to graduate and be someone in life,” said Morales.

“I want to be a history teacher mostly because of how the high school teachers, especially Larry Lausch and Steven Payne, helped me and how they are the ones who got me going since my mom passed away. I didn’t have my dad or his support, he wanted me to drop out. The teachers were the ones who motivated me and were like my family,” Morales said.

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COMMENCEMENT

• West Auburn High School, 1:30 p.m., Saturday, Auburn High School Performing Arts Center, 700 E. Main St.

• Graduation class: 17