Leaving Home 19 Mooseheart Graduates Look Forward and Back
By Nancy Gier
ngier@@dailyherald.com
The 19 young men and women who were graduated from high school Saturday at Mooseheart aren’t just getting out of school.
They’re leaving home in a far more abrupt way than the average college-bound senior.
“It’s really cool to get to say I grew up here,” said Class of 2007 president Katherine Morones. “Mooseheart’s my home.”
It was a theme expressed frequently during graduation ceremonies at the Mooseheart Child City and School on the 1,000-acre campus nestled between Batavia and North Aurora. It is presently home to some 250 children, from pre-school to high school. Residents come from across the United States because their parents cannot care for them for a variety of reasons.
Graduates Morones, Christopher Fitzgerald and Tomisha Bennett, all age 18, came to Mooseheart as babies. Though very young, their time at the residential facility totals more than 49 years.
“I have mixed feelings today but mainly fear,” Bennett said before the ceremony. “This is pretty much the only place I’ve even known.”
Fitzgerald has served as mayor of the campus and expressed another sentiment clearly evident Saturday.
“I look forward to a bright future,” he declared. “I know I can do anything if I put my mind to it.”
Commencement speaker Mark Penzkover, a 1984 graduate of Mooseheart, would agree with Fitzgerald. But he cautioned that success must come with a sense of responsibility.
“Remember the words that are carved into the entrance,” Penzkover told the class. “Enter to learn, leave to serve. I took that phrase to heart and I still live by it.”
Penzkover came to Mooseheart in 1969 at age 3, when his parents were killed in a car crash. He went on to study engineering at Purdue University, went to graduate school and works as an engineer in Milwaukee. He is a member of the Mooseheart board.
About 1,000 onlookers filled the field house to cheer on the 19 graduates. Much of the audience was made up of members of the Moose, the international fraternal organization of some 1.1 million men and women. Mooseheart is supported entirely by private donations, the vast majority of which comes from members of the Moose.
The Moose also grants college scholarships to Mooseheart’s high school graduates. Morones will attend Northern Illinois University, Bennett plans to study art at Monmouth College and Fitzgerald plans to study nursing at Waubonsee Community College.
For information, visit www.mooseheart.org.
(c) 2007 Daily Herald; Arlington Heights, Ill.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.