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

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Cece Grahn’s road to graduation has been long, painful, sometimes wet with tears.

Along the way, Grahn fought off a drug addiction. As a gay student, she struggled to fit in. Most terrible of all, she watched as her girlfriend of three years bent, crumpled and broke under the weight of her own drug dependency.

But the transition from Kentwood High School to West Auburn, from being one more face in the crowd to being part of an all-embracing school family, made all the difference.

On Saturday, Grahn graduates with her West Auburn High School class, proud, eager, ready for life. She knows who she is, where she’s going, and how to get there.

“I’m going to be a nurse,” Grahn said. “I’m already halfway through getting my pre-nursing AA (associates of arts degree) at Green River (Community College). I love the medical field. I’ve always been the kid that ran up to bloody kids with a bandage whenever they were hurt. My friends call me ‘Mama,’ or ‘Mama C’ because I take care of everybody. It’s kind of something that I didn’t choose to do, life chose it for me.”

She cannot say enough about West Auburn.

“When I went to Kentwood, I didn’t know many people. It’s a center for education, nothing beside that, But West Auburn is a family. We’re the West Auburn family. We care so much about each other. Cliques and all of that stuff disappears, it really does,” Grahn said. “Here, I’m friends with rockers and ghetto kids, I’m friends with everybody. It makes me want to come to school get an education because I know I’m coming to a place where people want me there and they know who I am instead of me just walking through the door and disappearing into the Commons.

All the teachers here, they care so much about you, and you’re not a number at all. Everybody knows my name. That made a huge difference for me,” Grahn added.

She was 12 when she fell into drug addiction.

“I don’t want to say I fell in with the wrong crowd, because everybody uses that excuse. I guess I kind of did, but I was just so curious about everything, and I wasn’t afraid to try anything,” she said. “I just dove right into it, and ended up getting addicted. It messed my life up. When I tried to return to school after treatment at 15, it was extremely difficult. My counselor recommended that I come and talk to Brad Sprague, who was the principal here at the time. And I did. He said I’d be perfect for this school. And I was. Coming to West Auburn really changed things for me. I got back on track with my education, learned from my mistakes and moved forward,” Grahn said.

Harder than getting over her own addiction was her girlfriend’s addiction to heroin and meth..

“She lived with me, and I had to watch her go through that. It was heartbreaking, the most devastating thing I’ve ever gone through. We dated for three years. It was hard to overcome. I had to realize that I am my own person, I have to figure out how to take care of myself before I can take care of other people.”

As a nurse, she’s have plenty of opportunity for that.

But what about the bed pans?

“That’s why I’m going to be an RN. See, that way I get to tell the LPNs to do all the bed pans,” Grahn laughed.

Benjamin Holtz

Before his sophomore year, Benjamin Holtz had never set foot in an actual, physical classroom.

But arriving at West Auburn High School two years ago to pick up the credits he needed to graduate, the home-schooled kid quickly found himself at home, a real native of the place.

Quiet, highly intelligent, well spoken, bearing a resemblance to film star Leonardo DiCaprio, Holtz describes why it worked for him.

“Everything is very relaxed, I know everyone on a first-name basis, including the janitors and secretaries,” Holtz said. “Everybody is very cordial with each other, we all know each other. The teachers are some of my best friends here. The classrooms are smaller, so you get a lot more chance to bond with teachers,” .

This Saturday, the 20 year-old Auburn man graduates with his West Auburn Class. He is thinking hard these days about becoming a pharmacist and the school has a lot to do with his focus.

Holtz said that by the 10th grade, home schooling had run its course. He heard that the Auburn School District was starting up a virtual high school at West Auburn. He tried that, worked at it for a year but lost his motivation. So he began two semesters of the regular day program before moving onto a year of Running Start at Green River Community College. He didn’t qualify for math classes at GRCC so he returned to West Auburn for a semester and the math classes he needed to graduate.

“At Green River, I discovered philosophy, and it was fun. I liked debating. I liked the hard sciences like chemistry. I’m getting better at math. I kind of like math for the sake of knowing it. It’s like philosophy in that you can think logically about things and sort of puzzle things out. It’s brain exercise, which is fun for me. I sort of just like to learn. My brain is like a sponge — I just pick things up,” Holtz said.

Careers teacher Colleen Rayburn is his favorite.

“I’m not sure how to describe her. She’s a coffee addict … but very personable She works hard not to figure you out not, but to understand you. There’s a distinction between the two, and it’s an important one. And she cares, plus her class is very useful for resumes and cover letters.

“At West Auburn, it’s a lot smaller and quieter. I didn’t know that when I started, it was just the virtual program for me. I had never been in an actual classroom environment before that. It was sort of a stepping stone thing. I was trying to get credits out of the way and graduate. This school was just the easiest place to get it done and what my experience led me to believe,” Holtz said.

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Commencement for West Auburn: 1:30 p.m., Saturday, Auburn Performing Arts Center, 700 E. Main St.