Wednesday, June 12, 2013
a
The Kings Mountain Herald | www.kmherald.net
Cerjan, Allen top the class of 2013
ELIZABETH STEWART
lib.kmherald@gmail.com
Mike Cerjan, the No. 1 student, and
Matthew Allen, the No. 2 student in the
Class of 2013 at Kings Mountain High
School, share high goals.
Cerjan, 18, the valedictorian, aspires
to become a civil engineer after com-
pleting -four years of study at N. C.
State University.
Allen, the salutatorian, aspires to be-
come a prosecuting attorney after com-
pleting pre-law studies at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Both are honor students (All a’s) and
time.”
~The KMHS Valedictory speech by Michael Cerjan:
“Good morning fellow graduates, friends, and fam-
ily. Today’s ceremony is brought to you by the number
thirteen. On close inspection, our graduating class has
a very deep connection to this number. We grew up in
Kings Mountain (a city whose name is thirteen letters
long), in North Carolina (a state whose name is thirteen
letters long), and (including kindergarten) have received
thirteen years of educational instruction, and are now
graduating in the year 2013. To people who believe in
superstitions, the number thirteen is unlucky, bringing
misfortune to those who encounter it. Could it be that
our graduating class is possibly the unluckiest bunch of
students to ever graduate from Kings Mountain High?
“| think not. You see, we have all been given great
opportunities that have prepared us for the next step of
our journey. We've been blessed to be surrounded by
people who want to see us improve and be successful,
and those people have instilled in us important values
to succeed in the 21st century, values like hard work
and determination. We've been specially trained for
success in whatever the next stage of our life is,
whether it’s military service, enrollment at college, or
the beginning of a professional career. The world is full
of opportunities just waiting to be taken. We are going
to achieve great things, we are going to overcome some
difficult obstacles and solve difficult problems, and
most importantly, we're going to get all the credit for
doing those things.
“I think if we take a moment to count our blessings,
then we will truly know how lucky we really are. |
want to clarify for a minute; I'm certainly not saying
that we should go around breaking mirrors and walking
under ladders all the time. Not only is that bad luck, it's
just plain dangerous. | AM saying that we Graduates
should take extreme pride in our connection to the
number thirteen. The next time somebody says how un-
lucky thirteen is, just show them how awesome you
turned out. Who better to improve the reputation of
thirteen than this graduating class?"
The KMHS Salutatory speech by Matthew Allen:
“Good morning, never thought you would hear that
at graduation, did you?
“Over the past few weeks people, some who | last
saw when | was a baby, have stopped me in conversa-
tion, and the conversation always builds up to them
saying something along the lines of “Look how far
you've come,” or “look at where you are now.” Well,
this is not really that far, maybe a ten or so minute ride
_ from my house and this is a nice place, but it is not the
Promised Land.
“Naturally, I'm sure many of the seniors behind me
have had similar conversations, and while the intention
is wonderfully nice, I am equally sure that the seniors,
me included, can essentially agree on the same thing. If
we consider the topics of these conversations to be our
greatest achievements in life, we would stop and look
as those people suggested, but they are not.
their end of high school scores were
very close. Cerjan said “we were neck
and neck all year and actually tied for a
Cerjan, son of Christopher and
Stella Cerjan, served as president of the
Math club last year, was on the Frisbee
golf team, computer-aided drafting and
design club. He plays guitar and bass
and likes to write songs. He is a mem-
ber of St. Mary’s Catholic Church and
has one sister, Anna, 16.
Allen, son of the Rev. and Mrs.
Doug Allen, is active in the Beta Club,
National Honor Society, and served as
president of the National Technical
Honor Society. He plays chess and is a
member of Penleys Chapel Church. He
has a sister, Allison Diaz and brother-
in-law, Osvoldo Diaz of Gastonia. He
works part time at Swoogers in Kings
Mountain. He is the grandson of
Shirley Wilson of Gastonia.
The top scholars grew up in Kings
Mountain and said that growing up in a
small town and attending KM High
School was a blessing. Both said they
would consider coming back to their
hometown to work, “go where we are
needed.” ;
KMHS class of 2013 salutatorian, Matthew Allen.
This momentous day, that it is, is only the beginning
of the journey to the Promised Land. For some that land
is a career, for some, it is honorably serving in the mili-
tary, for some it is a family, and for others it is a mixture
of all three. We all have a promised land, and we will
all strive to achieve it. We will go to college, join the
military, or get a job, all to achieve that goal, to reach
the Promised Land. Once we get there, we look around
in content, for our job is done, but until then every
minor victory, every achievement reached, will be step-
ping stones, and as we celebrate, well deserved, we
will have our Promised Land in mind, for that is just the
type of people we are. We, members of the Class of
2013, have and will continue to have our minds fo-
cused on that Promised Land if only because, as our
high school careers show, we are achievers with moti-
vations and goals.”
Public hearing Tuesday
Public hearing on the Kings Mountain ABC Board pro-
posed $1,278,700 budget will be held Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.
at the Kings Mountain ABC Store, 220 Cleveland Avenue.
The meeting is open to the public and a copy of the proposed
budget is available for inspection in the office of the board’s
general manager, Aileen Ormand, 220 Cleveland Avenue,
Kings Mountain.
Out-of-School celebration
Carolina Place Arcade, 318 W. King St., is holding an out-
of-school celebration Saturday, June 15, from 12 noon until
8 p.m. Students of all ages are invited. Bring your report
cards and play 2 free video games for each “A” and 1 free
video game for each “B.” This offer is good throughout the
year.
Page 5A
MAYHEW: marks a century
From page 1A
to golf. He and his wife have
competed in the ‘Cleveland
County Senior Olympics
and N. C. Olympics and be-
tween the two of them they
have two laundry baskets
full of medals.
Mayhew played basket-
ball and baseball at Number
Three High School when it
was 11 grades. They didn’t
have football or he would
have played it, too. He
played pro baseball for
Newton-Conover and
Mooresville for one season
and returned home to serve
in Uncle Sam’s Army and go
to work. >
* Before retiring he and his
late wife, Susie Mayhew,
owned and operated May-
hew Appliances in Shelby
for more than 25 years. He
and Ruth Eaker Gamble
were married March 25,
1989.
They attend Sulphur
Springs United Methodist
Church and El Bethel
United Methodist Church oft
alternate Sundays each
month. Last Sunday his pas-
tor at Sulphur Springs rec-
ognized him for long service
to the church and commii-
nity and for a century of life
that few people have oppor-
tunity to celebrate. Tom is
looking forward to 101 cati-
dles on his birthday cake
next June.
PROCTOR: up for any challenge
From page 1A
often works undercover.
This means she sometimes
poses as a seller or a buyer in
a world marked by suspi-
cion, betrayal and remorse-
less violence.
“It’s a fine line you have
to be able to walk. You have
to be able to read people,”
said Proctor, 43, who re-
cently talked about her ca-
reer as a cop, her ordeal with
cancer, her love of competi-
tive barrel racing, and an in-
tensive West Point
accredited leadership train-
ing program she completed
in May.
Above all else, Proctor is
guided by her faith. “I pray
up daily because I know this
job is dangerous.”
Although Proctor projects
calmness and confidence,
she says she has an intense
desire to get better, smarter
about her work. It was that
drive that propelled her to
enroll in the West Point
Leadership Program through
Methodist University. Proc-
tor traveled to Apex, a small
city outside of Raleigh, to
take weekly eight-hour
classes from January through
May and said the homework
involved ate up much of her
weekends and free time. In
class she rubbed shoulders
with narcotics officers and
police chiefs from all around
the state.
“It’s about leadership
skills, tactics, learning how
to work effectively with dif-
ferent personalities. It’s like:
a bus. You don’t just fill it up
with people and drive. You
have to get the right people
in the right seats. We learned
how to be good leaders, and
how to mold leaders. What
we want is that those
(younger officers) coming
up behind us to know more
than we did at the time.”
The West Point Leader-
ship Course is adapted from
a military course that’s re-
quired of all cadets in the
United States Military Acad-
emy in their third year of
study.
In October of 2009, Proc-
tor received some terrifying
news. Doctors diagnosed her
with a fast-growing, late-
stage breast cancer. She was
under a surgeon’s scalpel
just 12 days later. Later, she
endured numerous painful
and sickening rounds of
chemotherapy and eventu-
ally underwent reconstruc-
tive surgery.
“It was a crisis I couldn’t
have gotten through without
God and my family. We
prayed for very specific
things. Very specific things,”
Proctor says, crediting het
deep sense of faith and the
loyalty of her husband,
KMPD Police Chief Melvin
Proctor. :
Proctor’s competitive
spirit, which has supplied
her with the gumption to
fight cancer and crime, also
kept her active at what's
probably her most passionate
hobby: barrel racing.
A year to the day after the,
diagnosis that turned her
world upside down, Proctor
won the 2010 National Bar-
rel Horse Association’s 5D
Reserve World® Champi-
onship in Perry, Ga., on her
horse named “My Secret
Troubles.” The prize for that
was a nice pair of boots, a
belt buckle and a cash award
that she prefers not to get
specific about.
The accomplishment was
all the more remarkable be-
cause, on the heels of
chemotherapy and surgery; it
was only 45 days before the
event that she was able to get
on a horse to practice.
“Cancer made me a better
person,” said Proctor, who is
planning on writing a book
about her work, hef horses
and the battle she nearly lost
to the disease. “It’s going to
be about the ordeal and the
people who helped me get
through it.”
Proctor ‘was named the
1998 Drug Agent of the Year
and the 2002 Child Abuse
Investigator of the Year for
Region C, which encom-
passes Rutherford, Cleve-
land, Polk and McDowell
counties. The detective divi-
sion that Proctor belongs to
was also awarded the re-
gion’s 2003 Richard Corley
Award, which goes to law
enforcement groups that
were able to make an ex-
traordinarily positive impact
on the community.
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