News Service

GCC Student Success Stories for Graduation 2008

Each year at graduation time, the college likes to mention some very special students and share their particularly dramatic success stories.

Angelo Bonilla is a tenacious man with only a slight limp as a reminder of the daunting physical challenges he has overcome. Suffering a severe stroke in 2004, Angelo lost his speech and use of the right side of his body. After his hospitalization, he was moved to a rehabilitation facility that eventually discharged him in a still-nonfunctional condition, saying this was "as good as he was going to get." Angelo did not accept that and enrolled in GCC's Adaptive PE program. After receiving help there, he began to work out in the main GCC Fitness Center, having to be tied to the equipment at first so he wouldn't fall off. Angelo has worked out two hours a day, five or six days a week ever since. Months turned into years, he regained his voice and most of the use of his right side, and he enrolled at GCC to take classes. He received a Certificate of Completion in Home Furnishings and Materials and plans to pursue an Associate in Interior Design at Phoenix College.

Graduation is a major achievement for Dorothy Bourgeois. Hearing disabled from birth, she also suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder. She has lived in poverty much of her life and endured an abusive marriage in Massachusetts for many years. She overcame alcoholism as a young mother and has been in recovery for more than 20 years. At a very low point in her life, she attempted suicide but survived thanks to medical intervention. Dorothy later came to Arizona with her children, some of whom have fought drug issues and other challenges. Her goal is to transfer to ASU and obtain a bachelors degree in Social Work. She wants to help others as she has been helped at critical moments in her life–especially by all her teachers and mentors at GCC. She received an Associate in Transfer Partnership Degree in Social Work, ASU Main.

Victoria Gough grew up in critically extreme poverty in Illinois. She and her family lived in the woods outside of town, seeking shelter in boxcars or abandoned sheds and eating out of dumpsters. She wore rags and never had shoes. She attended school only very occasionally and only from 3rd to 8th grade. Her family forced her to marry at 13, and she soon had three kids and an extremely abusive husband. Despite such dire circumstances, she got a divorce, brought her kids to Arizona, remarried, got her GED, and enrolled in GCC with fear and trembling. Victoria is now a member of National Honor Society Phi Theta Kappa, is on the National Dean's List and graduated with an Associate in Arts degree AND an Associate in General Studies.

Elisabeth Renteria is a very strong young woman who has overcome an amazing list of obstacles. She married right after high school (where she participated in GCC's ACE-Plus program) and had three children, now aged, 6, 4 and 2. Through high school and the years immediately after, she had a number of jobs as a teacher's aide in public school special ed classes or as an assistant teacher in private schools. Much of that time, her husband was in and out of jail. She enrolled full-time at GCC in 2005, worked two jobs, took care of her kids, took in a cousin who was on drugs and excelled in everything. Elisabeth did receive a Dorrance Scholarship that greatly helped her financially. Happily, her husband is now back in the home and has a good job, allowing Elisabeth to be a student and mother without having to hold down a job. She received an AA in elementary education and will pursue her bachelors next fall at ASU.

Caleb Taylor is just two years out of high school, but he is already on his way towards achieving his goal of becoming a surgeon. He was raised by a single mother who has strongly encouraged him his whole life. He is studying biochemistry and plans to transfer to ASU this fall for pre-med. He is already applying to medical schools. In addition to carrying a heavy load of difficult classes and labs every semester, he maintains a superior GPA of 3.7, works 30 hours a week, and participates very successfully in the GCC Forensics program which takes a incredible amount of time for rehearsals and competitions. He just returned from a national competition where he received a bronze medal for duo interpretation, a bronze medal for interpreter's theater, and the gold medal in prose interpretation. Caleb believes that the communication and public speaking skills he has learned in Forensics will stand him in good stead in his chosen professional career. He graduated with an Associate in Science degree.