Schorr, Jasperse top SVHS grads
Graduation tonight
By Emily Charrier-Botts, INDEX-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Original article on sonomanews.com

Lauren Schorr and Leland Jasperse have grown up together, attending the Sonoma Charter School before entering Sonoma Valley High School, participating in the same after-school activities and hanging out with the same friends.

Today, the pair will stand together one last time when they address their class, parents and teachers as the valedictorian and salutatorian of the class of 2009. Schorr, 17, was named valedictorian during last Wednesday's Senior Awards Ceremony at the school. As with all valedictorians at the high school, she will be giving a speech that looks at the future.

"I finally know what I want to say," Schorr said. She plans to attend Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., where she will major in government with a focus on international relations, a far cry from where she thought she'd take her education.

"I was into biology and zoology," she said. "And I really wanted to stay in California."

But everything changed for Schorr last year when a librarian at the Sonoma Valley Regional Library told her about the Student Peace Alliance, an organization that campaigns to support HR 808, a bill seeking to establish a national Department of Peace and Nonviolence. Schorr was so enamored of the program that before long she became the city organizer for the group.
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"(The experience with the Peace Alliance) completely turned around my plan," Schorr said. "Now, I would love to one day become the Secretary of Peace when the department is created."

Cornell offered the best program in that line of study, so despite her desire to stay close to home she will instead head across the country for her education.

"I've never actually been to the snow," she said of her move to Ithaca, one of the colder climates in the Northeast. "I'm an only child and I'm very close with my parents. That will be the hardest part when I leave."

Schorr filled her days at high school with numerous activities. She was a member of the Mock Trial team that took ninth in the state this year, she participates in Earth Club and Key Club, she acted in "West Side Story," she is a senior girl scout, and news editor of the school's newspaper, Dragons Tale. She also volunteers at the library in the summer, has worked as an intern in the Sonoma Ecology Center's Enviro-Leaders program and she is a member of the California Scholarship Federation.

Jasperse, 18, is heading to the University of California, Los Angeles - a school he selected specifically because it offered a degree in atmospheric oceanographic and environmental sciences. Ultimately, he would like to work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration doing research.

"I would like to study global warming," he said. "I'm also considering neuroscience."

Jasperse participated in many of the same activities as Schorr. He was a member of the Mock Trail team as well as the Forensics Team, interned with the ecology center, was an editor on the Dragons Tale, participated in the Earth Club and was an officer of the Key Club.

Jasperse will be giving a speech that looks back on the past, which is appropriate he said, because he has not quite come to terms with the end of his high school days.

"I feel like I'm just leaving for the summer," he said. "It hasn't struck me that I'm not coming back."

The Sonoma Valley High School Graduation takes place tonight, Friday, June 5, at 6:30 p.m. in Arnold Field.