4 Private Schools to Hold Graduations

More than 300 students will graduate from four private schools in the county during the first week in June, with commencement ceremonies for Saint Bonaventure High School in Ventura scheduled for 4 p.m. today.

The ceremony will be held at the Ventura College gymnasium, with 109 students graduating.

The Catholic high school will feature Msgr. Terrance Fleming as principal speaker. Valedictorian Brian Kane and salutatorian Suneel Garg will also speak.

Music for the event will be provided by the St. Bonaventure High School Marching Band.

On Thursday, Cornerstone Christian School in Camarillo will celebrate its 10th year with a graduating class of 13 students out of 480. The ceremony is set for 7:30 p.m. in the campus chapel.

School Administrator Steve Burris said one of the highlights of the graduation is when students give flowers to their parents.

“It’s a kind of thanks, sort of a recognition by the students that they’ve come this far,” Burris said, “and that the parents have been a big part of this.”

Oxnard’s Santa Clara High School will hold its graduation at 4 p.m. Friday in the Friedrich Pavilion on campus. A baccalaureate Mass will be held at 1 p.m. at St. Anthony’s Church in Oxnard.

The school, celebrating its 88th commencement, will graduate 142 students. Bishop G. Patrick Ziemann will officiate at the ceremony.

Thacher School, a preparatory school in Ojai, will graduate 58 students at 11 a.m. next Saturday in the Forest Cooke Garden on the campus.

The ceremony will be preceded by a baccalaureate service at 10 a.m. in the school chapel. George G. Montgomery Jr., chairman of the board of the Environmental Defense Fund in New York, will be the speaker at the baccalaureate service, a school spokesman said.