‘Today, it’s about you’
Over 30 students from across Santa Fe Public Schools graduated Monday in ceremony at Capital High
The small celebration Monday morning in Bryan Fant Theatre at Capital High School signified a great accomplishment for 17-yearold Jacob Hiner: a diploma.
After a personal tragedy two years ago, Hiner fell behind in his school work. He spent the first half of summer with a full load of credit recovery classes so he could catch up to his senior class peers, most of whom graduated in May. Making it across the finish line in 2022 wasn’t an easy task.
“It definitely felt impossible,” Hiner said outside Capital High, surrounded by a crowd of family and friends.
His best friend, fellow Capital High student Ivan Perez, known by many as “Mondo,” was fatally shot in July 2020. Another friend recently went to prison. Hiner commemorated both with photos on his teal graduation cap.
Getting to class on time and keeping up with homework while carrying around the grief of those losses was a struggle for him.
“That’s why I didn’t graduate,” Hiner said. “Because of my best friends that are gone.”
Hiner, described by his mother, Becky Mitchell, as “full of heart,” was one of just over 30 high school seniors at Santa Fe Public Schools who became new grads Monday. They will all be counted as members of the Class of 2022 at their schools.
Nineteen were Capital High students. One of them, 18-year-old Berni Puentes, was the first in his family to follow in a his grandmother’s footsteps and graduate from high school.
“It’s really a big deal this day came,” said Puentes, who has a goal of one day enrolling medical school.
Ten graduates were students at Santa Fe High, and a few were from the district’s online and hybrid school, Desert Sage Academy. They included Aaron Nevarez, 18, who plans to study psychology at the University of New Mexico.
Nevarez first attended Capital and then Santa Fe High before enrolling in Desert Sage his final year.
“I didn’t really get to graduate with a lot of people I knew, so that kinda hurt,” Nevarez said.
He credited Desert Sage and its principal, Michael Granado, for helping him succeed.
“I struggled at first; it was hard with COVID,” Navarez said. “Mr. G called me in to have a meeting. He put me to work.”
Before passing out the Desert Sage diplomas, Granado addressed Nevarez, drawing a comparison between the student and Albert Einstein. “Everybody’s heard of Albert Einstein,” Granado said. “He did not make it the traditional way.”
“Today, it’s about you. Not challenges, not disappointments, defeats or mistakes. It’s about what you’ve accomplished and what lies ahead,” Superintendent Hilario “Larry” Chavez told the graduates at the start of the commencement ceremony.
Capital High Principal Jaime Holladay noted some students were finishing late after losing loved ones or having their lives altered by the coronavirus pandemic.
“You’ve each championed your own lives, overcoming personal obstacles to reach this milestone,” she said.
Santa Fe High Principal Renee Salazar-Garcia told grads their summertime finish “means nothing less. It’s perhaps more important because you didn’t give up.”
Hiner, with his new diploma, hopes to find work rather than pursue a college degree.
Juan Blea, a friend of Hiner’s family, said the soft-spoken graduate was “underselling himself.” Blea had become concerned when he saw the teen’s transcripts last year, he said, but Hiner caught up fast by testing out of several classes and taking on a full summer load — all while facing an increase in violence and other issues affecting the city’s youth.
“This particular young man has had to go through shootings,” Blea said. “He’s representative of how these kids work super hard and overcome way more than the average obstacles.”
Blea added, “We have to make sure that kids like this, who are facing these obstacles, see that there’s an opportunity … and an avenue for success.”