<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Monday, March 18, 2024
March 18, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

2016 Graduation: Sunnyside High student lives big, dreams bigger

By
Published:

SUNNYSIDE — The list is long: cheer team (captain this school year), track and field, Latino Culture Club (president this year), Pep Club (vice president this year), Student Leadership Program, Key Club, National Honor Society, Associated Student Body treasurer.

Still, as she prepares to graduate from Sunnyside High School, Yazaret Villafana wishes she could have done more in high school.

Her obvious skill at juggling multiple scholastic and social responsibilities will come in handy when Yaz, as friends call her, begins classes this fall at the University of Washington. She plans to major in finance and hopes to work for a large international firm such as Apple or Intel.

No small ambitions here, but that’s never been the case with Villafana, who’s in the top 2 percent of her class. She’s the first in her family to graduate from high school, let alone think about going to college, she said.

Her mother, Maria Delgada, and father, Lorenzo Villafana Sr., are agricultural workers. Her sole older sibling, Lorenzo, dropped out of school in ninth grade, she said.

“My older brother would always be getting in trouble,” Villafana said. He is now 22 and works at a dairy.

But Yazaret Villafana, who was born in Toppenish, immersed herself in high school from the beginning.

“I came into high school with high standards,” she said.

She lives with her mother and stepfather, Israel Sagarnaga, and has three younger siblings: sisters Esmeralda, 14, and Yusleybi, 4, and brother Ever, 8.

Assistant Principal Dave Martinez said that from the time he met her, Villafana talked about being a Husky. She worked hard to reach that goal, taking advanced math as a freshman and broadening her student experience far beyond her studies.

“She was able to wrap herself in school,” Martinez said, noting that Villafana builds strong relationships.

Connections are big for Villafana — connections with her peers, with school staff, with members of her church and with residents of her city.

She’s in the youth group at St. Joseph Catholic Church and has helped with several food and clothing drives, receiving a community service award from the Sunnyside School District for her efforts.

Such a busy schedule is not easy for a young woman who enjoys reading in the little spare time that she has. Some school days, she arrives at 5 a.m. and leaves around 6 p.m. because of cheer practice, clubs and other commitments before and after school.

“Mr. Martinez says I’m here longer than he is,” Villafana said.

And both she and Martinez stressed that her story is not unique among Sunnyside High School students. Others whose parents did not graduate from high school or attend college have set lofty goals for themselves. Like Villafana, other children of agricultural workers have reached their goals and have reason to be proud, even as they hope to achieve more.

“We have lots of kids that do that and are able to deal with adversity and be super involved,” Villafana said.

Her success, she said, is thanks to the help of a “whole lot of people.”

“A big part of it was meeting the people I did,” Villafana said, specifically mentioning Martinez; cheer coach Alejandra Bobadilla; Maribel Madrigal-Mendez, the migrant graduation specialist and Latino Club adviser; and John Lobbestael. He’s been her math teacher except for AP calculus, she said.

“There’s a lot of staff I go to, but when I want to ask for anything, they can help,” she said.

Despite her dizzying array of activities, Villafana has followed a fairly straightforward path through high school and summarized it simply.

“Keep your grades up, get involved and just enjoy it,” she said.

Loading...