The History of Justin Chung
My name is Justin Chung. I was born in Monterey, California. My family moved to Hazel Park, Michigan at age 4. At age seven my mother moved to Hawaii to be in a care home and in the care of the family. Before kindergarten I met a family that had a tremendous impact on my life. Josh, Chris, Nick, Heather, Andrew, Greg, and Ellen moved in across the street to 118 W. Jarvis, a house that would play a huge part in my life, a house that I would live in eventually. One time I came to the backdoor while Ellen and Greg were in a heated argument. Ellen has told me that I saved her from being hit that day, she always thought I was her little guardian angel. Greg became abusive to Ellen overtime and in the summer before fifth grade Ellen and the kids moved to Cheboygan, Michigan. They continue to play a part in my life, I definitely consider them my own family. In fact, I’m hosting Thanksgiving for all of us this year. I don’t know if there are many people who have the education history in Hazel Park quite like I do. I began pre-school at Calvary Baptist Church in 1987 and graduated Hazel Park High School in 2001. I am a product of 15 years of Hazel Park education.
I had four amazing teachers at Webster Elementary School that I really connected with. Ms. Hurnevich was a very generous educator. She had a drawer full of prizes, a candy drawer, and a paperbook library. Ms. Hurnevich became quite fond of me often asking me how her favorite student ever is doing. She had me memorize the Gettysburg Address as a side project and rewarded me with butterfingers every paragraph I could recite. Everyday she had speed tests in spelling, math, and reading, if you were first one done in your row you were allowed to get up and pick from the prize, candy, or paperbooks. She had me change rows weekly. I became a big fan of butterfingers and North Carolina University. She would often visit her family in North Carolina and bring back t-shirts, shorts, socks, and other apparel. I would later apply to North Carolina University and get accepted.
In second grade I would become a pupil of Ms. Kline. She was much more of a strict disciplinarian. She wasn’t warm and fuzzy like the other three teachers I would have after her or the one I had before her but nonetheless I would learn an ample amount. I would come to remember Ms. Kline not for what she taught us during school hours, but rather for what she did after school. Two days a week she taught several of us to play the piano. She was an excellent instructor. She knew when we didn’t practice and she commended us when we performed well. During the piano recital my hands were shaking. It didn’t help that while I was practicing a cock roach crawled out of my keyboard. Ms. Kline might’ve sparked my lifelong appreciation for music. I could never thank her enough for all the piano lessons she gave us.
In fourth grade I would learn in the classroom of Mrs. Germain. She began focusing on a small group of us. She had us do extra reading, writing, math, and since she taught fifth grade as well, she had our special group skip fourth grade homework in lieu of fifth grade assignments. In fourth grade I won the school spelling bee. I became the most popular boy in school that day. It was the first time in history a fourth grader won it, but that’s not the reason I will remember it. I will remember it because I beat Pazong Yang, Josh Horvath, and the vaulted Maria Shram (the much talked about school prodigy who skipped fifth grade). In districts I would lose on the word amplifier. I spelled it “amplifire”, I never heard it before, but it became my favorite word and I used it constantly in my vernacular. In the District Spelling Bee I wouldn’t be so fortunate. I placed sixth among the sixteen finalists, nothing spectacular but then again I was the only fourth grade pupil in attendance. Another great memory when I competed against other students in the district was on the chess team. We were the biggest elementary school so we had two teams. The longest game of the day was between my opponent and I. I was the third seed on our team and if I won the game we would win the district tournament. In the final game, I did indeed capture the king, and Webster I won the tournament, Webster II earned second place (Josh Horvath was the captain of Webster II, James Hormez was the captain of our team).
I started playing basketball with Chris in fourth grade as well. I wasn’t very good, I scored one basket all season. Although I wasn’t any good, I knew my baseball days were soon over because I had a new passion. I did have one very fond memory of baseball however. The summer I threw a no hitter. The last pitch was legendary, one out to go and their best hitter was at the plate. He looked like he should be in the midgets, not pee-wee. It was a full count, three balls two strikes, if I threw a ball it was a walk if I threw a strike it was over. I had three pitches; a curve, sinker, or fast ball. Really, they were all just variations of my fast ball. The 5’6, 130 pound man child, who was also their pitcher, who already hit me in the side with one of his pitches, crushed the ball right back at me. I stuck out my worn out blue and black Don Mattingly mitt more in self defense than anything. I twisted my body so my face faced second base and hoped the baseball would hit a useless part of my body. The ball hit right into my palm harder than anything I’ve ever felt. It hit my mitt so hard my wrist strap broke off. With a tear of pain and joy running down my cheek, I managed to grab the ball out of my glove with my right hand and raise it in the air I just threw my first and only no hitter. I played another two summers, but I never got a feeling from baseball quite like I did that day. I retired from baseball for three reasons.
1)My vision was getting worse and by the time I saw the ball it was well on it’s way to hitting me.
2) I didn’t have a washer/dryer so I always had grass stains on my pants and dirt on my shirt, team picture day was just embarrassing (I thought about skipping picture days often)
3) It wasn’t as fun without Chris on my team and competing against Josh once or twice a season. There’s only so many tennis balls you can throw against a wall until you get bored.
In fifth grade I requested Mrs. Germain to be my teacher again. She would be my science teacher yet again in seventh grade and my student council advisor in eighth grade. She didn’t teach me that long in fifth grade before she took her pregnancy leave. Mrs. Caleb (Scholz) would step in as our sub, then long term sub, then interim teacher. She was young, energetic, and warm. I couldn’t think of a more perfect complement to our much missed Mrs. Germain. In fifth grade I became much better in basketball. My dad would give me a quarter for every free throw I could make, and an extra two dollars for every time I went 10 for 10. Curtis and Matt were still much better than me, but I was getting better by the week. In Webster’s annual spelling bee I earned runner-up to Joe Young, who was a grade above me and a great friend of mine. His father bought me a Dyno VFR because we couldn‘t afford a bike. He also bought me a pair of Nike‘s, previously I never owned shoes that were worth over $20. The bike was stolen right in front of my eyes at Wanda park, luckily my shoes weren’t. At the district spelling bee I would be I would turn the tables, Joe finished 8th and just like at Webster I finished runner up in districts.
In sixth grade I requested Mrs. Elfawal to be my instructor. She was the most popular teacher at Webster Elementary and I would soon learn why. She had an engaging personality, a magnetic aura, and beautiful physical features. I had a new kindergarten crush. I now rivaled Curtis Betts for the best basketball player on the team. I made the all star game. I became the 1994 Mr. Basketball, previous winners include John Hormez, James Hormez, and Aaron Hildreth. I won the school spelling bee again. For the District Spelling Bee, I had to leave my basketball game against Hoover elementary school at half time and run to Beecher Junior High. I arrived there with five minutes to spare. I don’t think I caught my breath until the sixth round, I never really calmed my nerves. Again, I did rather well at the District Spelling Bee, becoming the runner up two years in a row. Richard Irvan, the winner, told me after the competition that his team Clark Elementary runs a box and one against me. He is the one in the box and one, and his sole mission in the game is to defend me. I was so proud to wear my Webster Wildcat Basketball t-shirt while having them put the spelling bee medal around my neck. I still own that shirt to this day, it is my all time favorite shirt, I sleep in it. Richard and I became good friends and it marked the first time I met someone who was more intelligent. Even though he was more intelligent, neither one of us could spell cemetery, even after three chances each at that darn word. C-E-M-E-T-E-R-Y. I don’t recall what word I lost on, but I’ll always know how to spell cemetery. C-E-M-E-T-E-R-Y.
Sixth grade was the year you could take finally take band class. I wanted to play saxophone, but that instrument was much too expensive. My dad and I somehow found a flea market on 8 mile that had an instrument dealer. He rode his bike and I ran to this very large building on eight mile. It was only a couple miles away, but from a socioeconomic standpoint, it was quite different. I had the choice between a cornet (smaller trumpet) and a silver trumpet. The cornet was $180 and the silver trumpet was $195. My dad implored me to choose the silver one, but I was sold on the novelty of the cornet. As usual he was right, but because of his admirable parenting skills he let me have the choice anyway. I learned from Mrs. Gerbheardt, the band director, the silver trumpet was probably worth $200-$300 more. I never let my dad know, but I suspect he already did. We also had a computer class one day a week. My dad created a typing tutor game, so I had an inherent advantage over my classmates. By sixth grade I could type over 60 w.p.m. by tenth grade I averaged over 90 w.p.m. In high school, I qualified for the state competition, held at the Renaissance Center, in keyboarding and extrapraneous speech. Sixth grade also marked the first time I could climb to the top of the rope without my legs, reach the top of the peg board, and have my own intramural basketball team. The championship game was at 7pm between Chung’s Chunkettes and Betts’s Ballers. The Ballers went 6-0 and we went 5-1, our only loss coming to them. We ended up losing the championship game in overtime, I hated losing more than anything.
Mrs. Elfawal had some sort of honor’s bucks system. You could earn bucks for good grades, behavior, attendance, flash card wins, etc. If you saved up enough you could win a field trip to her house for dinner and then a Detroit Pistons game. She lived in Auburn Hills and it was one of the nicest houses I’ve been in up to that point in my life. I never attended a pro sporting event either. But the most entertaining part of the trip was sledding on the hills in her backyard.
I didn’t lose contact with Ms. Caleb (Scholz) either. She started a science club that met one day a week after school. We built many unique things, but all I remember is making a volcano erupt. There’s nothing cooler to a little kid than making something come alive. Thank you Ms. Caleb (Scholz) for letting me make my lava blue.
Near the end of the school year Mr. Boldt, Webb’s Junior High School’s cross country coach, stopped by our class to recruit. Since my father wasn’t going to let me play football, I immediately signed up.
There was a lot of memories at Webster Elementary School. I’ll never forget all the awards assemblies, the choir concerts, the piano recital, the spelling bee’s, the basketball games, the recess’s, dodge ball with Mrs. Germain, learning to play the piano, learning the trumpet, making paper machete fish, the book fairs, the battle of the book competitions, the boy scouts, Valentine’s Days, Halloween, safety guard, birthday parties, and the teachers. My last award I would receive from Webster Elementary school would be the 1996-1997 Student of the Year. I had made my mark at that school and I would always cherish the memories.
Not only was I moving to a new school, we would be moving to a new house. My dad and I moved across the street to live with Greg and his two roommates. My father bought a bunk bed and we slept on the front porch. Summer and fall wasn’t bad, but in winter I would wake up shivering. There was also fleas infesting the front porch which took awhile to get rid of. Sadly enough, this was actually an upgrade from our old house. In second grade a Social Services agency had me live with the Horvath’s for two weeks while my dad cleaned the house. Every night was like a sleepover and Josh, Chris, Nick, and I made the most out of it. I remember on snow days I would try to sleep in and they would build a tunnel all the way from their house to mine just to wake me up. We would play outside all day and when we would come in Ellen would have hot cocoa ready for us while our snowsuits were drying in the dryer just so we could make them really warm and do it all over again. One Christmas video, right after they opened their presents and Josh whined that Chris must’ve been the better kid because he had all the better presents, they are filmed begging to call me. I never really got much for Christmas. But one Christmas, I opened the door and there was a box on the front porch. I couldn’t believe it, there was an actual box with things in it. It had flash cards, an abacus, and a pack of 20 little race cars. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy in my life. I was too smart to believe in Santa Clause, but it was hard for me to envision my dad going to the store and buying these things and then hiding than from me until Christmas. I also knew no one else would actually buy a kid flash cards for a present. Who does that? My two other favorite presents I received for Christmas was a baseball glove from Ferndale Foursquare, it was a Wilson glove with a big pocket, Greg oiled it up really nice for me and broke it in perfect, and a big truck from Adam Delarosa’s grandmother.
Seventh grade began a couple weeks early running “The Hill” of Webb Junior High School. Lorraine Kline, Danielle Cayer, and Shara Kostinko also joined the team. Between those three, I must have close to a thousand letters. Jack Greenshields, I, and all the girls spent countless hours at Lorraine’s pool, licking kool-aid popsicles, getting a treat at Dairy Park, and riding our bikes around the neighborhood. I struggled to be a top five runner in seventh grade. Mr. Boldt was a great coach, he was very motivating and sincere. It didn’t hurt he brought kool-aid ice cubes to practices either. My best time was a 13:27 2 mile. Basketball came much easier, I made the A team handily. In track, Mr. Boldt had me run multiple events and the high jump as well. Richard and I competed pretty hard against each other in the high jump. I adjusted pretty well to junior high. I was in the highest band class. I had quite a few medals from cross country and track. I performed in the Memorial Day Parade. I had made a lot of new friends. Lastly, I developed a healthy hatred for Beecher Junior High School, after all it was the first time I had a rival.
In August 1996 my dad took Chris and I to Hawaii to visit my mom. I never traveled anywhere with my dad so I was really excited. It was also the second time I was going to see my mom. I don’t think two young boys ever had such a fun field trip. My dad let us roam Waikiki by ourselves, we hung out at the beach all day, and spent hours gawking the merchandise at the International Market Place.
Eighth grade, was more or less much of the same. My cross country time was in the twelve minute range, I was consistently the second or third best runner. Our team won the Belleview Classic, the Centerline Race, and placed at The Stoney Creek Run. Again, I made the A team in basketball, and in track I ran an awful lot under Mr. Boldt. Richard and I performed a trumpet duet at districts. I became president of the student council, joined Creative Academics under Ms. Grant, and competed in the Math Club. At the final awards assembly I won “Student of the Year” for the class of 1997, the previous winner was Joe Hilla.
In ninth grade, I finally had my own room. Well, technically it was the basement, but it was mine, all mine. One roommate would move in and another would move out, Greg went to prison a couple times on assorted felony charges, and finally the basement became empty. Ninth grade was already off to a wonderful start. I joined the marching band and cross country team. Mr. McCoy was the band director and Bob Fulcher was the cross country coach. I saw way too much of both of them before high school even started. I loved everything about high school. I was voted to the B.O.D. (Hazel Park high Schools student government) by my eighth grade class, started on the basketball team, I ran track. I was became the class secretary, joined the bible club, the debate team, drama club, and performed as a “Jet” in the school’s musical Westside Story. Sometimes I would leave my house at 5am and not return until nine or ten. I never really focused too hard on my studies, but so far I had straight A’s. Mrs. Ryan, Victoria’s mom, always said I was going to be the Valedictorian, I really didn’t think it was possible. My dad constantly told me it was okay to get a B, and don’t sweat the grade as much as the learning process.
Freshmen year flew by, I couldn’t believe how much I enjoyed high school. By the end of the year, I felt like much more than a spec on the radar. I was again voted into the B.O.D. which is worth another credit in the high school curriculum. I realized I could graduate high school early if I took a couple community college classes. After advice from my dad I didn‘t want to rush, so I immersed myself more into all that high school had to offer. I earned my 2nd cross country varsity letter, my first track letter, started for the junior varsity basketball team, performed in the Peter Pan musical, became president of the Bible Club, secretary of the sophomore class, debate team, drama club, switched from trumpet to baritone in the marching band, joined the highest band class, joined the all OAA honors band, marched in the Memorial Day Parade for the fourth time, and was invited from some group that wore blue to be in Detroit’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I still don’t know why I was invited, but I had a blast representing Hazel Park nonetheless. The year flew by and before you know it, it was time for another summer spent with the Horvaths in Cheboygan. It would also be the last time I would spend a summer up there.
Junior year was a year of confidence. It soon became my favorite year of my life so far. I became a co-section leader with Joe Hilla in the marching band, in the regular band I beat him out for first chair. I was chosen by Tim Fulcher to represent Hazel Park in the annual H.O.B.Y. conference. I was accepted into the N.H.S. Again, I was voted into the B.O.D. again I was secretary of the class. Donny Green graduated so I decided not to join the drama club or the musical this year. Donny Green was a junior year when I was a freshmen I met him while doing “West Side Story” and he soon took me under his wing. He wasn’t in the cool group of his class, but he was very cool in his own way. Him and Brandon were best friends. They sang in the highest choir class and were in all the plays and musicals. I had a blast hanging with the cast of West Side Story. We would often just break into random free styles, we rehearsed the fight scenes ridiculously, and we constantly bumped “Notorious Thugs” by Bone Thugs and Biggie before the show. It was great performing the matinees for all the elementary schools. I remember going to see the musical in elementary school and thinking how cool it would be to actually be in the play. Years later, I was singing “The Sharks are gonna have their way toniiiiighhhht!” I decided at the end of my sophomore year that I was going to retire from cross country and track. I told my good friend Danny Brown about the decision at the Sports Banquet that spring. Little did I know he was going to tell Coach Fulcher. Bob Fulcher was not pleased, he thought I was making a huge mistake and openly questioned my character. I told him I needed a job so I could have some money and that I was better at other sports, and I would contribute more to the high school if I pursued them. He wished me the best but for the most part we agreed to disagree. Though, by the same token (one of his favorite lines) I knew where he was coming.
2003 was the first year Hazel Park became eligible to compete in soccer. In 2002, Hazel Park created their soccer program and had to have a customary one year probation before they were added to the schedule. I didn’t play soccer since seventh grade, but I was real happy to learn we now had an official soccer program. In gym class, Mr. Stagg would have us compete in multiple sports. I particular liked football, always and have always will. My team won the intramural championship and he began courting me along with the AD Tom Pratt to be the jv quarterback. I loved the idea of it. At the time I was a freshmen and I was very committed to the cross country team, also my dad wasn’t too fond of me playing football. I know we didn’t have any insurance so if I broke my collarbone or anything like that, I would be in a world of hurt. My only regret in high school is not pursuing the position Mr. Stagg and Mr. Pratt were encouraging to do. Mr. Stagg played linemen for the University of Michigan, his picture is on the hall of fame in the gym. He is certainly someone I admired.
I decided to try out for the soccer team. The two a days and the practices came quite easy, after all I did come from a sport where all you do was run. I was always much more coordinated than I was fast, but soccer took another level of coordination altogether. Not only did I make the varsity team, I was voted the captain. It wasn’t my best sport, but one of my best memories come from it. We were playing Southern Lathrup at home in the rain. The lights were shining bright and the rain was coming down hard. We had a 3-2 lead with about five minutes ago, they kept pressing us, kept pressuring us, we couldn’t seem to keep the ball off our side of the field. Our goalie Francie Atcho just booted the ball back on their side. Their defender came down with the 50/50 ball and switched fields on us. Francie was caught way out of position when their midfielder struck the ball from the forty on our open net. I immediately came from the other side of the field and ran down to the ten where I dove backwards and flipped my head to knock the ball off its path. The soccer ball went over the center post by about a foot and we secured our first win of the season. There’s nothing quite like slide tackling in a heavy downpour, competing in mud puddles, and celebrating in the rain.
I made the varsity basketball team amidst quite a coaching controversy. Mr. Kirkland, the varsity coach for ages, retired after my sophomore year leaving Ms. Fuhr, my freshmen coach, and Mr. Barnett, my jv coach, vying for position. Mr. Barnett ultimately won out but not without quite a controversy. Mr. Barnett chose class over talent, attitude over skills, and favored our junior class heavily over the senior class. We were in over our heads. Brandon and Dan were our only players over 6’4, I think Brandon quit and Dan became inelgible. At some point in the season I was doing the jump ball, and I could barely grab the rim. I believed those losses hurt our team, but we still didn’t have the athletes nor the talent to support the system John Barnett wanted in place. At one point in practice I asked the coach, “Won’t they know what play we’re running?” He responded, “I’m okay with them knowing the play, it doesn’t matter, they’re going to have to stop us.” Without a superior athlete in high school basketball it’s pretty easy for a team to stop you, clog the middle, run zone, cheat to the ball side. Every good team in our conference ran a motion offense, we ran set plays. Freshmen year we went 18-2, sophomore year 14-6, and this year we won two games. I was a big fan of our coach, but in hindsight we weren’t going to be very successful with his schemes.
I finally landed a job my junior year, I started in September and it closed in October. It didn’t reopen again until March. It was the perfect job for me, it was Dairy Queen. March came along and I joined back at DQ. I decided I wasn’t going to do a spring sport this year and finally just take it easy and maybe even have more of a social life. After three years you receive a Varsity letter for the Marching Band, you also get an academic letter if you’re gpa is high enough, by the end of my junior year I had eight varsity letters. Junior year classes weren’t that easy either, AP History was kicking my butt. Somehow Mrs. Cruz, my math teacher, god bless her, found out I was free in the fall. She insisted I join the tennis team. She even took me to the Tennis and Golf Co. and helped me find a tennis racket within my budget. I came to really enjoy tennis, I started at #2 seed and by mid season I had to play the best player in every high school around.
Junior year ended up being my busiest year of all. On top of everything else, I learned two new sports, got a job, took the ACT’s, and found sometime for a girlfriend. I was ready for the summer. And again, I finished another school year with straight A’s marking 11 straight years of straight A’s.
In the summer I got a full time job at Kids Kamp at the Hazel Park Recreation Center. Carla created the program and was the current boss. It was quite an impressive program. We had an average of 65 kids a day to watch over. We had about 7-10 people on staff at all times. We went on one field trip a week (the zoo, waterpark, Henry Ford Museum, the movies) and Webb’s indoor pool twice a week. Everyday there was movie time, craft time, outdoor time, recreation room time, and lunch time (my favorite because the kids actually sat down for more than 10 minutes). Most Fridays there was some sort of hot lunch. I couldn’t believe how organized, energetic, and fun Carla was. From 8am-4pm I would be at Kids Kamp at the Hazel Park Recreation Center and 5-midnight I would work at Dairy Queen. I was like the ant storing up food in summer so he could eat in the winter.
I was finally a senior. I was going to be a member of the heralded class of 2001. By senior year I was starting to burn out a little. It was my fourth band camp. I was sick of waking up at 5am to go to a 6:30am band practice. Not too mention, Mr. McCoy took a job offer from troy Athens, and left our program in the dust. Luckily, he left me a wonderful solo for the song “When you believe” in the marching band show. How often does a baritone get to start a song and play by himself for a good 16 bars, never. I never got to thank you for that Mr. McCoy. Mrs. Gibbons, the new band director, wanted me to try out to be drum major, I just couldn‘t pass up that solo. Soccer was fun, we were getting better every practice I took a kid named Kyle Stuef under my wing. I recruited eight of the soccer players to the tennis team and it seemed to really revive the program. B.O.D. earned me yet another credit. I took physics, calculus, AP English my senior year. Those classes alone could run someone into the ground. I still had my one pass/fail I could use and still be eligible to be the valedictorian, I used it on calculus. I definitely made use of that pass/fail too. Knowing all I had to do was pass, I’m sure Tim Fulcher wasn’t too happy with the effort I exuded on my TI calculator. I was still president of the bible club, became vice president of NHS, joined the Business Students of America, qualified in two events for states, first chair and section leader for the baritones, captain of the soccer team again, captain of the tennis team and first seed singles, although by my own admission I started playing around with my shot and wasn’t quite nearly as effective as I was my junior year, started on the varsity basketball team, became manager at DQ, and still had a girlfriend.
I narrowed down my choices to four schools Oakland University, Saginaw Valley State University, Michigan State University, and University of Michigan. Saginaw Valley offered me a full scholarship because I was a valedictorian. I earned a full scholarship at University of Michigan as well. I had to go to Ann Arbor and take a 3 hour long test. They computed your test score, your ACT score, your gpa, and extracurricular activities and gave out 25 full ride scholarships to minorities. I earned one of them. I would have also earned a full ride to Oakland University through various scholarships and grants. Michigan State University gave out 10 full scholarships to minorities based on ACT score, gpa, extracurricular activities, and phone interview. The 10 scholarships had to be dispersed evenly between in state and out of state students. I received a call from Michigan State University and learned that I placed twelfth among the top twenty applicants. I was two out of the running, but they said I had a very good chance a couple prospects would choose another school. Two weeks later, I did in fact reach the top ten, however, five scholarships had to be given to out of state students and therefore I would not receive the All America Scholarship. My dad and I came to the conclusion that Michigan State University was the right school for me and sent in my acceptance letter. The only place I didn’t have a full ride I decided to attend, looking back I don’t really see the logic in that, but it’s one of the best decisions I ever made.
At class day I really cleaned up. I won Lion’s Club “Student of the Year”, Optimist’s Club “Student of the Year”, and several other notable scholarships. With all these scholarships, along with the MSU scholarships and grants, I had ample enough funding to go to college. The Hazel Park High School scholarship committee requires you show them how much funding you are going to receive for college, that’s why I presume I didn’t win the largest scholarship HP gives out which is the Harmony House Scholarship. The HH scholarship is $4,000 a year for four years that goes to four students. I remember Julie Facine, Richard Irvan, and Anne Wittla winning that one, I can’t remember the fourth, but they all really deserved it. I couldn’t believe the generosity of our alumni, donors, and companies associated with Hazel Park High School. I asked my friends from other schools like Lamphere and Ferndale if they had all that “prize money” available. They couldn’t believe the list of scholarships Hazel Park gave out. I don’t think there’s a better tribute to Hazel Park’s education system then Class Day. I don’t think the students realize how fortunate one can be by going to Hazel Park High School. My freshmen class was a touch over 450 people and my graduation class was 220. It’s quite a shame to have a 50% drop out rate, with so many teachers caring about each and every student. I did live up to the prophecy of being a Valedictorian, but that’s not the award I’m most proud of. The Erickson Cup goes to the most outstanding student of each senior class. At the end of class day Mrs. Cruz gave an amazing testament and presented me with the Erickson Cup, I couldn’t believe it.
The next day, I took school off and went to all my old teachers and thanked them for everything they did for me. As soon as I entered Webster Elementary school people started clapping for me. They told me that the Class Day ceremony was broadcasted to all the schools in the district. They wanted their students to see the alumni from their elementary school becoming successful. Every time someone from Webster Elementary School won an award they clapped enthusiastically. Ms. Caleb (now Mrs. Scholz) said her students were giddy with Webster pride every time I collected a scholarship. She told them that at one time she was my teacher and one of her students asked her if she could teach him to be just like me. To this day I don’t think I’ve received such a compliment, and I don’t I ever will. Thank you Hazel Park School System! You’ve done more for me than I could have ever imagined.
Proud student of Hazel Park 1987-2001,
Justin Chung
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