The Bidwell High Class of 2019 graduates turn their tassels at the end of the ceremonies, Wed., June 5, 2019. Photos by Allen Payton.

Bidwell grad Kearve Williams speaks while Antioch School Board President Gary Hacks looks on.

By Allen Payton

The 49 graduates of one of Antioch’s two continuation high schools, Bidwell High School, and their families and friends celebrated the accomplishment during ceremonies, Wednesday evening, June 5. The event was held at the Deer Valley High School theater under the leadership of Principal Carol Lowart.

Student speakers included Kearve Williams and Jennifer Ramos. He thanked his teachers and school staff for helping the students overcome their challenges and reach their goals.

Ramos thanked her teachers “for believing in me when I didn’t believe in myself,” offering her speech in both English and Spanish.

“You owe me money if you bet I wouldn’t be here,” she said jokingly, but then got serious. “We’re all destined for something greater. We were given a second chance and we won’t take that for granted.”

Bidwell High grad Jennifer Ramos speaks during commencement ceremonies.

Awards were given to a variety of the graduates: the Principal’s Award went to Kiave Williams; the Academic Achievement Awards were given to Mahogany Oliver and Jose Viveros; Most Improved award was presented to Lataevia Beverly; the Citizen Award was given to Joselin Silva Castro; the Perseverance Award was presented to Kimore Brown; the Spirit Award was given to Irving Castenda, and the Knights of Columbus $500 Scholarship was awarded to Zamalah Shook.

“It was a memorable year,” said Principal Lowart. “These students worked very hard. We are extremely proud of you and look forward to what you will do in the future.”

Antioch Superintendent Stephanie Anello accepted the school’s Class of 2019, having met all the requirements to graduate. School Board President Gary Hack and Trustees Diane Gibson Gray, Mary Rocha and Ellie Householder handed the graduates their diplomas. Trustee Crystal Sawyer-White was not in attendance.

More than 1,300 students took part in UC Merced’s Spring Commencement ceremonies on Saturday, May 18 and Sunday, May 19. Students receiving their bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees were honored together, with Chancellor Dorothy Leland delivering the keynote addresses in her final commencement as chancellor of UC Merced.

Graduates from Antioch include:

Adebowale Adedeji — B.S. Biological Sciences

Tanvi Sareen — B.S. Cognitive Science

David Satyadi — B.S. Bioengineering

Ashley Tejada — B.S. Biological Sciences

Dominique Unubun — B.A. Psychology

Ryanjit Virk — B.S. Biological Sciences (graduated with high honors)

Members of the 2009 graduating class — the first graduating class in UC Merced’s history — took part in the ceremonies. This year’s graduating class is the largest in UC Merced history.

UC Merced opened in 2005 as the newest member of the University of California system, and is the youngest university to earn a Carnegie research classification. The fastest-growing public university in the nation, UC Merced enjoys a special connection with nearby Yosemite National Park, is on the cutting edge of sustainability in campus construction and design, and supports high-achieving and dedicated students from the underserved San Joaquin Valley and throughout California. The Merced 2020 Project, a $1.3 billion public-private partnership that is unprecedented in higher education, will nearly double the physical capacity of the campus and support enrollment growth to 10,000 students. 

Screenshot from KTVU Fox2 news report of emergency rescue personnel attending to the boy at the Antioch Water Park, Tues., May 28, 2019.

By Sgt. Rick Smith, Antioch Police Field Services – Patrol

On Tuesday, May 28, 2019 at 11:22 A.M., Antioch Police Officers responded with medical personnel from Contra Costa Fire to the Antioch Water Park facility at 4701 Lone Tree Way, for a possible drowning. The victim, an 11-year-old male juvenile, was at the park with a group for an end of the school year function. He was found by Antioch Water Park lifeguards at the bottom of one of the pools. He was pulled from the pool and medical treatment was performed by the water park lifeguards.

It is believed he had been under water for only a few minutes. He was breathing, but non-responsive when CCC Fire Personnel arrived and took over his care. The juvenile was transported by helicopter to a nearby hospital. As of this writing, he was awake and alert and being held for observation only.

No further information will be released at this time.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Antioch Police Department non-emergency line at (925) 778-2441. You may also text-a-tip to 274637 (CRIMES) using the key word ANTIOCH.

C.J. Nickolas with gold medal from the 2018 World Taekwondo Federation competition in Greece. Photo courtesy of Ed Givans.

C.J. Nickolas, a senior in high school and a student at Givans Taekwondo in Antioch, is headed to Taekwondo Senior World Championships in Manchester, England later this month. He had to withdraw from Heritage High in Brentwood two days into his senior year because he was one of eight athletes in the United States to be picked up by the USA Taekwondo (USAT) to train full time abroad and enter the European Taekwondo Open circuit. The intention is to get those athletes ready for 2024 or 2028 Olympics.

However, Nickolas has defied the odds, outperformed the initial expectations, and is headed to the World Championships this year. A few other things have to fall into place for him to make it to the 2020 Olympics, but he is definitely on track.

Nickolas is the son of Edward Givans, owner of Givans Taekwondo in Antioch, where Nickolas trains, and Denise Nickolas of Brentwood.

“His mom and I are very proud of C.J.,” the elder Givans said. “It’s been exciting to see him advance in his skills and the competitions.”

Arriving at this place in his life was not happenstance or luck for Nickolas. He has put long hours, and extensive time into training over the years. Nickolas has made many sacrifices to get where he is and says that even in the setbacks and losses and injuries, he knows he has to continue the grind. He says he digs deep when it’s tough and keeps pressing his way.

Nickolas is finishing out his high school through an on-line school (CAVA) while he continues to train full time.

His travels in the past six months have taken him to compete in Greece, Poland, France, Croatia, Africa and Spain among other places.

He has one stop in Bulgaria before he heads back to England to train for Worlds. Then Nickolas will continue his grind to get to the coming Olympics.

Allen Payton contributed to this story.

Aliha Mughal

By Allen Payton

Dozier-Libbey Medical High School senior Aliha Mughal, has been accepted to attend Princeton University and nine other colleges, next fall to study biology and pre-med.

Aliha has earned a 4.1984 weighted GPA (3.9008 unweighted) and was named Salutatorian for Dozier-Libbey Medical High School’s class of 2019. She is the daughter of Tabarak Mughal and Synary Be of Antioch.

She applied to a total of 13 schools and was accepted to 10, including San Jose State, CSU Long Beach, San Francisco State, San Diego State, UC Santa Cruz, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UC Berkeley, University of Southern California, and Princeton.

Different schools have different majors, Aliha explained. She has applied for molecular biology, cell biology or micro-biology depending on the school, all on a pre-med track.

At school, she is involved in HOSA (Health Occupation Students of America), Key Club, Leadership, and serves as an AVID (Advanced Via Individual Determination) tutor. Aliha currently serves as Senior Class Representative for HOSA and Senior Class Co-President for Leadership. She previously served as Junior Class Vice President and Recognition Commissioner for Leadership, as well.

Aliha has also volunteered to help collect and sort recycling for the school during her sophomore and junior years. Outside of school, she was a member of Deer Valley High School’s Colorguard and Winterguard teams during her junior year and was one of USC’s Bovard Scholars.

Her goal is to become a doctor, “specifically an oncologist,” Aliha said.

When asked why medicine, Aliha said, “There are two components to it. I have a genuine interest in science, especially the molecular, smaller scale things. That’s what leads me toward cancer. I’m specifically interested in immunotherapy.”

“I’ve also had family members who’ve had cancer, so there’s a personal aspect to it,” she explained. “So, it’s the combination of the two.”

As of last week, Aliha hadn’t visited all of the schools she was considering

“Right now, I’m leaning toward Princeton,” she said, during an interview, last week. “I was considering U.C. Berkeley and USC.”

Aliha then visited USC, last Saturday, April 27.

The deadline for her decision was May 1st. In an email to the Herald, yesterday afternoon, Aliha wrote, “I just wanted to update you on my final college decision. I have decided to attend Princeton University.”

Also, two of the league’s banners are missing. If you know who has them please have them returned to Jim Bonwell. Call (925) 978-5020.

Ellie Householder by AUSD.

An open letter to the Antioch City Council,

“Opportunity lives here” is a fitting slogan for Antioch. While our city has gone through major growing pains, our future together has rarely looked brighter. Yet the hard truth is that opportunity doesn’t exist equally for everyone, especially our largest and most vulnerable population, our young people.

Earlier this month, Kamani Stelly was convicted of four counts of attempted murder involving a 2016 shooting of an occupied vehicle at the corner of 18th and Cavallo. Thanks to the hard work of APD and the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office, he is now facing 160 years in prison. While justice may have been served, however, the damage and trauma this tragedy caused its victims and the entire community could well have been avoided.

At the time of the shooting, Kamani was 18 years old and a former student of the Antioch Unified School District. More likely than not, Kamani exhibited throughout his educational journey some sign of troubling behavior. The same might be said for Jordan Martin, who was murdered at the age of 18 last year in the Applebee’s parking lot, or the Deer Valley High School students who were loitering and disrupting businesses at Deer Valley Plaza in 2014. Whether anyone saw any red flags or bothered to intervene in the lives of these young people, we may never know.

What we do know is that these young people did not have the same access to youth programs, services, and resources that other cities Antioch’s size have. And this fact is preventing all of us from living and experiencing a safe and secure Antioch.

No one individual, no one single institution is solely responsible for how a 17-year-old enters the world of adulthood. It may sound cliche, but it truly does take a village to raise a child. As a current school board member and former AUSD employee, I understand that children are going to push the envelope. But as a community, it’s the responsibility of all of us–parents, educators, neighbors, police, and civic and business leaders–to teach them where the line should stop.

As the former chair of the City’s Sales Tax Oversight Committee, I was often concerned about how the city seemed to only understand public safety from an enforcement standpoint. Antioch is a city where a third of its population is school-aged, the vast majority of working parents commute an average of two to three hours each day, and latch-key kids are growing in numbers. Yet historically, any discussion about public

safety has focused almost entirely on adding more police, and nothing else. What truly keeps a community safe is its ability to address “safety” by balancing enforcement and interventions. Enforcement is important. Yet just as important, if not more so, is crime prevention. Essentially, youth services and programs represent this kind of preventative work. Study after study has proven that youth programs are highly effective at reducing crime in a community. And yet this crucial element of public safety is sorely lacking in our city.

I frequently hear about the pressing need for youth programs. The school district has done it’s best to provide these services, but our primary goal is academic. We need a partner in this process. That’s why I applaud the city for establishing the Antioch Youth Services Task Force consisting of Council Member Lamar Thorpe and Mayor Sean Wright. I’ve learned a lot from our community by participating in and observing the task force panels and workshops, including the fact that youth services are something our community desperately wants and needs.

By passing Measure W, Antioch citizens overwhelmingly voted in favor of adding before and after-school programs and other youth services and quality of life measures. Now it’s time to hold the city accountable and make sure our leaders deliver on that promise.

On April 9th, the City Council will begin the process of allocating a projected $14 million in annual Measure W funds to increase safety in our city. I encourage all members of our community to show up and participate in this process, so we can all work together to create a bright, safe, and beautiful city.

While y outh programming is an essential element to public safety, in Antioch, it is a glaringly empty piece of the puzzle. Filling it will ultimately reveal a bright and vibrant community that is safe, welcoming, and thriving. If we want the words “opportunity lives here” to have truth to them, opportunity must also exist for our young people. Now is our chance to make it happen.

Sincerely yours,

Ellie Householder

Antioch Unified School District Trustee