’00 Vals WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Graduates who stepped into a different world make their mark

The Class of 2000 graduated high school at the dawn of not only a new century but a new millennium, a special milestone that forever distinguishes them from other graduating classes of our time.

By the time they left college, the world had drastically changed: The Twin Towers were gone. The dotcom bubble had burst. The U.S. residential housing boom was on the cusp of collapsing.

So where are South Florida’s Class of 2000 valedictorians now? Not here, for the most part. Long a concern noted by scholars and economists, South Florida appears to have a brain-drain problem. The Sun Sentinel reached out to all 55 start-of-the-century valedictorians from both the public and largest private high schools in Broward and Palm Beach counties. Forty-two of them responded. Of those:

Just 14 of them, or 33 percent, live in Florida.

At least 15 live in the Northeast, most in New York.

Twenty-six went to college out of state, with at least 16 attending Ivy League schools. Only one returned to work in Florida, while another returned to be a stay-at-home mom.

At least nine are now physicians, the most common profession for the group, but only one practices in Florida.

The snapshot supports a 2010 Brookings Institute study that ranked South Florida among the

top five metro areas losing 25- to 34-year-olds on a per capita basis. The survey cited a high unemployment rate at the time, a lack of innovative jobs and large income gaps as primary causes.

“Some of our universities are going upward, but we don’t have an Ivy League foundation. And we don’t have Wall Street or Silicon Valley,” said State Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Parkland, who is on the Senate’s Commerce Committee.

Rachel Hughes, the vale- dictorian at Atlantic High in Delray Beach in 2000, attended the California Institute of Technology, and then Columbia University law school in New York, where she decided to work as a corporate lawyer. She said she did not consider coming back to Florida for three reasons.

“One, I no longer had any family in Florida, as my mother had moved away,” she said. “Two, my husband was working in finance in New York ... and three, New York is one of the best markets in the country in terms of interesting and challenging work.”

Stephanie Leon, valedic- torian at Boyd Anderson High in Lauderdale Lakes, lives in Texas and works as a medical physicist, where she oversees the use of radiology equipment. She says she is unlikely to return because of the lack of job opportunities.

“Medical physicist jobs are not real common; it’s the type of job you sort of have to move to where it is. I wouldn’t object to going back to Florida. I don’t really feel a lot of potential there in the short term,” said Leon, who is married and has a child.

The most common careers chosen by the Class of 2000 were physicians, business professionals, lawyers and teachers. There are three stay-at-home moms, a farmer, an aerospace engineer and a former commodities trader on Wall Street who quit to become a writer.

Richard Elf, of Spanish River High School in Boca Raton, was the only local 2000 valedictorian who became a physician in Florida. He attended the University of Miami for his undergraduate and medical school education. He works as an anesthesiologist at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood. Originally from England, he moved to Florida as a child and never wanted to leave.

“Anywhere you can wear flip-flops year round, I’m a fan of,” he said.

Micah Allen, valedictorian at Glades Central High in Belle Glade, pursued naturopathic medicine, which incorporates the use of acupuncture and Chinese medicine. But Florida doesn’t license these physicians, which she says could mean unqualified people are practicing. So she is working in the state of Washington, which does regulate the profession.

“I would have loved to come back to Florida or somewhere nearby,” she said. “Hopefully sometime in the near future, there will be legislation on the books so the public can get true representation from my profession.”

Marc Benayoun, Plantation High’s valedictorian, married his high school sweetheart and is finishing his residency in radiology in Atlanta. He is open to returning to Florida with his wife and two kids.

“The reality is, it will depend on who offers me a job. Ideally I would love to come back to Florida,” he said. “My parents are still in South Florida; a lot of our families are still down there.”