Olympic Gold Medalist to Speak at Carpinteria High Graduation

Source: Get Focused, Stay Focused

Wildfires, mudslides, and a global pandemic couldn’t stand in the way of the 2021 graduating class at Carpinteria High School accomplishing their goals.

To help recognize them, Dain Blanton, an Olympic Gold Medalist and head coach of the 2021 NCAA championship-winning beach volleyball team at University of Southern California, will be speaking at the commencement ceremony June 10. This will be the first commencement speaker they’ve ever done, principal Gerardo Cornejo said.

Graduating seniors at Carpinteria High School lived through the devastating Thomas Fire in December 2017 during their freshman year, which closed the campus and was the largest wildfire in California history at the time. Days later, the Montecito mud and rock slides in January 2018 killed 23 people in their community—once again closing campus and taking an emotional toll on students. And in 2020 during their junior year, their high school experience was once again disrupted because of the COVID-19 pandemic for remote learning through the students’ senior year.

“Every single one of these students has a personal connection to these events,” Cornejo said. “They’re incredibly resilient. They are living up to what it means to be a [Carpinteria] Warrior.”

The school will be holding a commencement ceremony in person this year to celebrate the students’ achievements despite the challenges they experienced in the last four years. Blanton will be the first commencement speaker at Carpinteria High School, Cornejo said, and is already special to all the students.

There’s no one better than Blanton to launch these students to the next phase of their lives because of the impact he’s had on these students since the beginning. In addition to being head coach of the USC beach volleyball team and an Olympian, Blanton is a spokesperson for Get Focused…Stay Focused!®, a nonprofit that helps students create meaningful 10-year life and career plans. As part of this program at Carpinteria High School, Blanton mentored the students on a variety of life and career planning topics through online videos starting in their freshman year. His helpful and inspiring advice has been a mainstay of many high schools across the country for the last decade.

“All these students know who he is from all the modules and classes with his videos,” Cornejo said. “It will be good for them to recognize a familiar face at the ceremony.”