SILVA AND GOLD

Camille Albrecht, who teaches synchronized swimming at the New Tampa YMCA, embraces her former student Juliana Silva.

When Juliana Silva’s family first moved to New Tampa, she didn’t speak a word of English; all she understood was her love of the water. 

“I’ve been in a pool since I was four,” says Juliana, now 17 and a former student at Benito Middle School and both Wharton and Wiregrass Ranch high schools.

Currently, Juliana lives in Moraga, CA, just outside of San Francisco, where she trains full-time with the U.S. Junior National Synchronized Swim Team.

After nine years on the Tampa YMCA Stingrays (TYS) competitive “synchro” team at the New Tampa facility, Juliana has her sights set on the ultimate prize: a 2024 Olympic gold medal.

“Juliana came to the Stingrays as an eager-to-learn, naturally athletic eight-year-old,” says TYS Head Coach Camille Albrecht, 30, who has sent several students to the national team. 

Since Juliana didn’t understand English at the time, Albrecht would use hand motions to demonstrate the correct techniques. 

“She picked up all the synchro words and English very quickly,” said Albrecht, who described Juliana as a “joy to coach, always cheering everyone else on.” 

Although Juliana was born in Indianapolis, IN, her family (mother Susana Barrios, father Rafael Silva and brother Leo Silva) moved to Venezuela and Colombia shortly after, returning to the U.S. in 2011. 

“I’d always heard that Tampa was a great city,” says Susana. “Before we moved here, I visited friends who lived right across the street from Hunter’s Green, and I totally fell in love with the area.” 

Athleticism comes naturally to Juliana. Her brother, now 19, started soccer at five, and their father was a former amateur champion and professional tennis player.

All Juliana wanted to do at first was stay home, so her mother decided to get her out of the house by signing Juliana up for swim classes at the Y. 

“She looked at me on the way to that first class and said, ‘Okay Mom, I’m going to try this once, but if I don’t like it, I’m not going to do it,’” Susana says. 

A month later, Juliana  began training with Albrecht, kickstarting her dreams of Olympic gold. 

Building A Track Record Of Excellence

At age 14, Silva placed sixth in her very first Regional “zone” meet, qualifying her for the National meet. It took three attempts to make the junior national team, which she did by placing 16th in the nation. 

“Before that, I was hard on myself,” Juliana says. “I told myself I’d never make it, that this was just for fun. But making it to Nationals was an eye-opener.” 

Susana says she began saving money for the pricey gear required for her daughter’s national competitions, including single swimsuits that could cost $200 apiece. She served her daughter meals and did her laundry while Juliana powered through a grueling training schedule, before and after school and on weekends. 

“My mom supports me to the max,” Juliana says. “She’s the one who’s always pushed me to do this — the reason I joined synchro in the first place is because she was tired of me being in bed, watching Netflix and getting fat!” 

In California, Juliana trains from 7 a.m.-3 p.m. every day except Sunday and spends four hours each evening online for academic classes. 

“It’s like a robot routine,” admits Juliana, who lives with two other teammates and a host family in California. “You wake up, eat breakfast, train, shower, do homework, eat dinner and repeat. If I lay in bed in the morning and think about it too much, I won’t get up.” 

Juliana also says that if she hadn’t struggled to qualify for Nationals at first, she would never have made it this far. 

“My numbers, and knowing I could do better, motivated me,” she says. “Just wanting this won’t get you anywhere. You have to put in the action.” 

Juliana’s team will begin its Olympic training after the Junior World Championships in August, as the team members aim for Paris 2024. 

Susana, who graduated law school at 22, encouraged her daughter to pursue her Olympic dreams and return to college later, reasoning that Juliana will still be plenty young when she “retires” from competitive swimming. 

“I don’t want synchro to be my whole life, because when I retire, I want a career to back me up so I have somewhere to go,” says Juliana, a high school junior who’s interested in forensic science. 

She says she misses everything about Tampa, especially her family and friends, her own bed, and the “heat and humid air,” which she says is easier on her eczema, a skin condition that she says is aggravated by swimming in chlorinated water. 

“My kids are truly Floridians, and we all think of Tampa as home,” Susana says. “Everyone here was so supportive and friendly when we moved in; my kids were invited to sleepovers a week later.” 

Susana says that she will always be grateful for the New Tampa community and particularly the New Tampa YMCA, which twice assisted Juliana via the Y’s Open Doors sliding scale program, without which lessons would have been unaffordable for the family. 

When a spot on the national team opened up, Juliana’s family had one week to decide if she would take it. 

“I told her it was her decision, and she told me, ‘Mom, I’m ready, I’m going,’” says Susana. “When I realized she’d be in a big city without me, I struggled, and of course, I miss her. We’re very close, she’s my baby. But I’m happy.” 

Truly One Of Our Own!

Juliana says she is very excited about the possibility of one day representing New Tampa in the Olympics. 

“When I got here it was unreal; it took me a while to realize that I’m actually here, that I made it, that this is my spot,” she says. “It feels amazing to know that you have a lot of people supporting you and even looking up to you.” 

Susana says she remembers watching, along with Juliana and her grandmother, Michael Phelps’ family celebrate his victory in the 2016 Olympic Games. 

“Juliana turned to her grandmother and asked her if she was ready, and my mother asked, ‘Ready for what?’ And Juliana said, ‘That’s gonna be you, I’m gonna take you to the Olympics!’” 

“If my daughter says she’s going to the Olympics,” Susana continued, “she will be there.” 

For more information about the Tampa YMCA Stingrays, visit TampaYMCA.org or call Camille Albrecht at (813) 785-7092. 

Tonelli’s Wildcats Off & Running Again

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.

More than one month into the new high school basketball season, Wharton High is undefeated, playing great defense, and establishing itself as the team to beat in Class 7A-7.

If that sounds familiar, it should. After all, the Wildcats have won seven district titles in the past 10 seasons, and jumped out of the gate with starts like:

  • 9-0 (last year)
  • 9-1 (in 2017-18)
  • 8-1 (2016-17)
  • 11-1 (2015-16)
  • 13-0 (2014-15) and on and on.

The difference between those teams and this year’s squad? Youth. Head coach Tommy Tonelli has led his youngest team to a quick 10-0 start heading into the meat of the regular season. 

“This is by far my youngest varsity team ever,” says Tonelli of a roster that includes four freshmen and four sophomores among the 12 players. “We lost six seniors, three starters, and the county’s Player of Year in Darin Green (now at UCF). That’s a big readjustment to make.”

They seem to be adapting just fine. The Wildcats’ closest game this season was a 61-49 win over Lennard High — the 450th win of Tonelli’s career — and six of their wins have been by more than 22 points.

Their season-opening run included a tournament championship — 49-33 over Berkeley Prep — at Nature Coast Tech’s holiday tournament.

Helping with that readjustment are the team’s only two senior starters — captains Carr Thiam and Gio Reyes, who have both emerged from Green’s wide shadow to lead the Wharton kids.

“They want to continue to sustain the traditions we have and the excellence we’ve shown in past years,” Tonelli says. “They have a lot of pride. Hopefully, they get to put another district championship banner up there.”

Carr Thiam fires in three of his career-high 34 points in a win over Steinbrenner. (Photo courtesy of Jess Self)

Thiam, a versatile forward who can score from long range or create his own shots off the dribble, is averaging a team-high 23.7 points per game, along with 6.3 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 2.2 steals. Reyes, the point guard, is averaging 17.9 points and 5.3 assists a game.

Both players have embraced their roles as leaders and the team’s go-to players.

“We know we have a lot of new guys and we have to get them going, be more vocal, so they pick up things faster. We get on them every day,” Thiam says. “We talk about (leading) a lot.”

“It’s all we talk about,” Reyes adds, smiling.

Tonelli says the seniors aren’t just leading verbally, but by backing up their words on the court.

“They set the right example,” he says. “I always tell the guys, if you want to see how it’s done, and you want to see what playing hard is, just watch those two. If you ever have any doubts, watch those two.”

The Wildcats are coming off a 26-5 season, and the team advanced to the Class 8A Regional final last year. Thiam and Reyes don’t want to be part of any team that ends the Wharton string of 11 straight seasons of 20-plus wins, and if this season looked like a ripe time to finally catch Wharton on the downside, well, Thiam says “not this year.”

So far, the Wildcats are 3-for-3 in their all-important District 7A-7 match-ups, handily beating Alonso, Steinbrenner and Plant and letting the county know it is best not to be fooled by Tonelli’s youthful roster. 

Against Steinbrenner, Thiam scored a career-high 34 points.

“I hit my first shot from deep, and I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be a good game,’” Thiam says. “I was surprised it was 34 though. I thought I had like 25 or something.”

Wharton’s youthful roster is far from a hindrance, says Thiam, but rather a benefit. He runs off a list of teammates he think will be stars down the road, and Reyes does the same.

The team does indeed have a wealth of young talent. Three of the freshman on the roster — guards Chandler Davis and Karmello Branch and forward Reginald “RJ” Bell — all started for the Turner-Bartels middle school team that went 8-0 and won the Hillsborough County championship last season.

Davis has recently moved into the starting lineup.

The Wildcats are getting contributions up and down the roster, from sophomore forward Trevor Dyson (8.3 ppg, 7.7 rpg) and guard Jordan Brown to junior guard Elijah Barnes and the only other senior, forward Josh Barnett, who is the tallest Wildcat at just 6’-5”.

“We’ve got pretty good depth, albeit inexperienced in a lot of ways,” Tonelli says. “But, I have a lot of confidence in what those guys can do. We may be lacking for physical size, but we have a lot of skill, a lot of guys that can put the ball in the basket
I definitely like what I see in the early going.”

ON TARGET

Wharton High is home to two of riflery’s sharpest shooters, and both have Olympic aspirations.

When Matt Sanchez signed his college athletic scholarship papers with West Virginia University on Nov. 14, it didn’t make the nightly sports news, but it was a big deal.

It was as big as a high school football player signing a college scholarship to compete at Alabama or Ohio State. Or a basketball player signing with Kentucky or Duke.

It was history.

Sanchez and his Wharton teammate, Ben Salas, who signed with North Carolina State University in Raleigh, are believed to be the first high school kids in Tampa Bay to sign scholarships for rifle, a varsity college and Olympic sport.

While Salas is going to join a young, growing riflery program, Sanchez will be joining arguably the best shooting school in the country.

The Mountaineers have won 19 NCAA national team championships, producing 25 individual NCAA championships, 65 All-Americans and 13 Olympians.

Sanchez hopes to No. 14.

Sanchez has already made a name for himself in the world of Olympic-style shooting.

At just 17 years old, the Heritage Isles resident has spent the last year traveling the world to compete in World Cups and World Championship competitions as a member of the USA Shooting national team. Because of his age, Sanchez currently is part of the junior national team.

“Most recently, I competed in September in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in the World Cup,” says Sanchez, “and I’ve also been to Germany and Austria four times each, and Switzerland, Korea and China.”

Sanchez participates in two types of competitions. One is smallbore, which is shooting a .22 caliber rifle in three positions — standing, kneeling and prone. 

The other is shooting an air rifle, which is a type of pellet gun, taking 60 shots while standing.

Jayme Shipley, who represented the U.S. in the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympic games, placing sixth in the 2000 Olympics in the women’s air rifle competition, is Sanchez’s coach. A resident of Naples, she coaches a handful of high school aged precision shooters throughout the state, and Sanchez is one of her best students.

In the smallbore event, he participated in the first round of Olympic Trials in October, where he finished in 11th place. However, a second round of competition will be held next spring “to make sure they don’t get someone who just has one good day,” Shipley says.

Only two men will make it onto the Olympic team in each event, but Shipley says Sanchez is currently in contention, and his chances are probably better to make the team in the air rifle event, where he often shoots scores that rank well among not just his teammates on the juniors, but also among the adult men.

Those trials begin December 6 at the Olympic Training Center in  Colorado Springs, CO, with a second portion of competition happening in February.

Shooting has been an event in the Olympics since the first modern games in 1896. In fact, the first medal given out at every Olympics is in shooting.

“When I first started working with Matt almost 5 years ago, we looked at the 2024 Olympics as a goal,” says Shipley. “But, he’s excelled so fast that he has a really good chance with this one.”

* * *

Incredibly, when Sanchez attends the Olympic Trials for air rifle, he won’t be the only Wharton High senior to compete.

Salas, a 17-year-old Live Oak Preserve resident, will compete as well.

While Salas hasn’t made the national team and didn’t compete in the Olympic trials for smallbore, he also trains with Shipley and also has his eyes on an Olympic prize someday.

Salas has only been shooting precision rifle since last October, but has progressed quickly enough to earn the opportunity to compete in the Olympic trials for air rifle. 

Ben Salas (left) and Matt Sanchez

A relative newcomer, Salas’ growth as a shooter has been accelerated in part due to working alongside Sanchez, a veteran of the sport.

Sanchez began shooting with his dad when he was only 10 years old. The family lived in Orlando and went to a rifle club on weekends, just for fun. Sanchez entered a few competitions at the club, noticing that others showed up in some “weird” gear. He says he started to realize there were things he could improve on and excel at, so he started getting his own gear and working on his technique.

“I started to win little competitions, which led to state championships,” he says. “Being able to win stuff really piqued my interest.”

At 13, Sanchez began to take the sport seriously. In 2017, his dad’s job change brought him to Wharton for the beginning of his sophomore year.

“When I got here, I saw they had a rifle team in NJROTC,” says Sanchez, referring to the high school’s Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program. “It gave me more time to shoot during school and made things a lot easier, training-wise.”

His presence has transformed the school’s program.

“Matt has been a mentor to our whole team,” says Chief Wayne Boknevitz, a Naval sciences instructor who also coaches the school’s rifle teams. “He got our whole precision team up and running and has elevated the entire marksmanship team.”

Boknevitz says the school previously had “sporter” level rifle teams, but not “precision” level. Sanchez worked with Boknevitz to get a team together, recruiting other students to invest in the expensive gear, while Boknevitz borrowed guns from another school.

“Matt took time from his own practice to help everyone else with form and micro-adjustments to the guns,” explains Boknevitz. “The knowledge he shared allowed us to go to Navy nationals last year.”

* * *

Unlike Sanchez, Salas was first an NJROTC cadet, interested in pursuing a military career. He joined the school’s rifle team for fun. On the sporter team, Salas set a school record, and Boknevitz encouraged him to join the school’s new precision team.

At first Salas was reluctant – he says his parents weren’t sure they wanted to spend the money on gear – but Sanchez encouraged him, explaining that precision shooting is a sport that can actually lead to a scholarship at a university. Salas says at that point, his parents were in.

“I was hoping to get into a Division II school, but my personal records kept going up very fast in a very short period of time,” says Salas.

He says it was earlier this year when he saw how well he was placing around peers who have been shooting much longer than him and wanted to take it a step further.

“I realized I could probably make the Olympics if I practice hard enough,” he says. “I’m really shooting for 2024.”

Salas is happy to give a lot of the credit to Sanchez.

“Before he came to our school there was no precision team, so if he had gone to another school, I would have stayed on the sporter team and all of this never would have happened,” Salas says. 

For the past year, the pair have trained together before and after school at Wharton using paper targets, and at home using highly sensitive Olympic-style electronic targets. 

They travel once or twice a month to a specialized range – of which there are very few in the state and none locally – typically going to one in south Hollywood in South Florida, where they spend seven or eight hours a day practicing their sport with Shipley.

“The two of them together are great friends and they are great training partners,” says Shipley. “They push each other. Plus, they’re both a joy to be around, just the funniest kids ever.”

* * *

While their eyes may be temporarily set on the Olympic prize as the Trials draw near, both boys say their more immediate goal has been getting a prized college scholarship.

“Most guys who make the (Olympic) team are in their 20s and some top shooters are in their mid-30s, so you can do it for a long time and have a long career,” explains Shipley. “When they’re so young, my goal as a coach is to get them into school with a scholarship, because school is expensive, and the sport is expensive.”

Both Wildcats hit the bullseye when it came to receiving scholarships.

Sanchez can play a hand in restoring WVU to the top of the college ranks. The Mountaineers 19 titles is No. 1 all-time, but they haven’t won one since capturing their fifth straight title 2017.

Salas will follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, who played football at NC State. He will be a big part of getting the Wolfpack on the college rifle map.

“At first, the program was just a club,” Ben says. “But, they just got a new coach and she’s really stepping up and making the program bigger and proving that NC State is a good shooting school. I’m really happy to go there and help them.”

There are only 30 universities that give scholarships in shooting, but none in Florida, although Shipley says USF used to have one of the best shooting teams in the country, with three Olympians.

Boknevitz says that to his knowledge, it’s the first time in Hillsborough County that any student has been signed to an NCAA shooting team and participated in signing day, taking pride that Wharton had not one, but two, students sign.

One way or another, both Wildcats have bright futures.

“I’m really excited for the Olympic trials, because I’ve seen what scores I can put up if I shoot my best,” Salas says. “But I’m more excited for college because I know that’s a guarantee.”

‘CATS TOPPLE PLANT

The Wharton volleyball team ended a long stretch of  frustration against arch-nemesis Plant High. 

Every Wharton volleyball season since 2014 has been just about exactly the same.

Post a great regular season record. Make the District final…lose to Plant. Two weeks later in the Regional playoffs, lose to Plant again. Season over.

However, the Wildcats may be poised to write a different ending this year. In their first meeting with the Panthers on Aug, 28, Wharton thrilled a boisterous home crowd with a nerve-wracking 3-2 victory, snapping a 10-match losing streak against their Class 7A, District 7 rivals.

The 25-21, 25-16, 16-25, 18-25, 15-12 win was the first against Plant since the Wildcats posted a regular season win on Sept. 16, 2015.

In other words, it was the first win over Plant for Wharton’s four seniors, and they all played key roles in the win.

Middle blocker Jamie Koopman (#14, above) led the team with 12 kills and six blocks, while outside hitter Jeanette Henderson added 10, including a miraculous play in the third set, where she went running off the court to save an errant hit, only to get back in time to take the set and smash a kill. Henderson and Koopman have played since their freshman year, and were 0-8 against Plant.

Senior middle blocker Alexis Morse, who joined the varsity as a sophomore, added three kills, while Deborah Rodriguez, in her second season, had 11 kills and 13 digs.

Kills by Morse and Rodriguez in the first set helped seal it after Plant had pulled within 22-20.

Rodriguez set the tone in the second set with a thunderous cross-court shot that put the ‘Cats ahead 15-12 as they cruised to a 25-16 win and a 2-0 lead.

Plant, however, did not go down easy, no surprise considering they are 10-time State volleyball champions.

The 25-16 and 25-18 wins by the Panthers in the middle sets were decisive and seemed to shift the momentum.

“We had to try and get back to basics,” said Wharton head coach Eric Barber. “Games one and two, we were playing our game plan. I think we were too amped for games three and four and we had to get back to doing the little things.”

The Wharton Blue Crew student section got back into the match for the fifth and deciding set, exchanging chants with the Plant faithful.

Koopman (#14, pictured right) and Rodriguez stuffed the very first Panther kill shots at the net to start the decisive set. Koopman made another block at the net that put the Wildcats up 5-3.

Wharton looked well on the way to the win when the ‘Cats took a 10-6 lead, but the Panthers very quickly knotted it 10-all.

Koopman put the Wildcats on her shoulders, presenting a ferocious obstacle at the middle of the net, both blocking and swatting down short sets. It would be a touch shot from Koopman, snuck just beneath a Panther block attempt, and then an angled shot that found the floor that clinched a 15-12 win in the set and 3-2 win of the match, setting off a wild, bench-clearing celebration.

While the seniors were the stars, contributions from the underclassmen may prove to be the key to keeping the old script flipped on Plant come playoff time.

Junior setter Payton Kenny had 21 assists, and sophomore Gabrielle Frye added 17 for Wharton, while junior libero Jacquelyne Kelly had a team-high 25 digs and sophomore hitter Isabella Bonatakis added four kills and three blocks.

The Wildcats are now 8-1 on the season.


THE BEST

Tirso “Junior” Cintron

The first truck pulled up to Wharton High in 1997, and head custodian Tirso “Junior” Cintron was waiting.

He pulled the first chair off the truck. The first desk. 

“The first everything,” says Carmen Aguero, one of the first teachers at the school.

Junior set the desks and chairs up in the classrooms and offices. He made sure the bathrooms had toilet paper and soap. The lawn was mowed. The floors were shined. 

Wharton was ready.

And every day, for the next 22 years, before any teachers and students arrived for the day, thanks to the diligence, determination and dedication of Junior, you could count on one thing.

Wharton High was ready.

* * *

Junior’s last day at Wharton was August 26. To say he will be missed hardly does his legacy justice.

“I’m telling you, and this is no exaggeration, he is the most beloved person ever to walk the halls of Wharton High,” says Tommy Tonelli, a guidance counselor and the school’s long-time, beloved boys basketball coach. “He has done more for Wharton in the history of our school than any other person that has ever worked here.”

That’s high praise from Tonelli, who isn’t prone to hyperbole. He was one of hundreds of friends that Junior made at Wharton over the years. Junior’s retirement party on Sept. 12, Tonelli says, will be the most attended retirement party ever at New Tampa’s oldest high school.

A school custodian can be a thankless job, and rarely does one rise to the level of hallway celebrity, but Junior somehow did just that.

He was always affable, earnest, positive, productive and those who knew him say he never had a bad day. 

He arrived every morning at 5 a.m., checked the air conditioning, swung by the kitchen to make sure the cooks had gas, went building to building turning off all 16 alarms, and made a sweep of the school to make sure everything was safe and ready for another day.

During the day, he answered calls on his radio for assistance, never saying no, never sighing, never hanging his head. When the school served as a hurricane shelter, it was Junior who made sure everyone was as comfortable as possible.

Even the dreaded call to clean up after a sick student — the one task he liked least — was hastily handled.

“I am an easy person,” Junior says. “I always had a good attitude, that’s why I win so many people. If a teacher saw me in the hall and said she needed a new board in her room, when she showed up the next morning, the board was there.”

Wharton career counselor Magda Rodriguez has a student take a picture of her and Junior, one of her best friends at Wharton.

Junior, 67, was born in Puerto Rico and moved to The Bronx, NY, when he was 18. He worked as a waiter in a hotel for 17 years, met and married Rosa, his wife of 42 years, and started a family — daughters Elaine and Jennifer, who are now teachers in Hillsborough County, and son David, who is a U.S. Marine.

In 1989, the Cintrons moved to Tampa, where Junior started work at Hillsborough High from 2:30 p.m.-11 p.m., while holding a second full-time time cleaning floors at Tampa General from 11:30 p.m.-8 a.m.

Those at Wharton can thank Aguero for Junior. The two met when Junior was the head custodian at Hillsborough.

When she was promoted to the athletic director at Wharton, and the new school was looking for a custodian, she had one word for principal Mitch Muley: Junior.

Aguero lured him to Wharton, where Junior soon became indispensable.

“He was the heart and soul of Wharton,” she says.

Aguero chuckles recalling the time Junior helped chase away the biggest squirrel either of them had ever seen, and the time he had to remove a dead alligator from the tennis courts.

When Aguero left Wharton to become principal at Webb Middle School, she had her head custodian sit down with Junior, “to teach him how to do the job right.”

Junior had his own way of dealing with problems. When parents complained that their kids said there were no soap dispensers in some of the bathrooms, Junior explained that the school couldn’t replace the ones student were destroying fast enough.

When the parents showed up to discuss the issue a second time, he was ready with a pile of smashed and broken soap dispenser. “After that, they never call me again,” Junior says. 

When some kids made fun of him for being a custodian, he pretended not to understand or would just ignore them. Those that didn’t, he would fist bump or salute. 

“I was like that with them all time; they would say ‘he’s cool,” Junior says, smiling proudly. “They like me because I’m cool.”

Junior loved joking with students and teachers, and wasn’t above the occasional prank. One of his favorite victims was Tonelli.

Despite the basketball coach’s fear of frogs and snakes, that didn’t stop Junior one time from putting a frog in a bag of donuts he left for Tonelli. Junior waited in an adjoining room with some other teachers, all eagerly waiting to hear the reaction. Junior leans forward as he tells the story, slapping his knee.

And yes, Tonelli was still Junior’s biggest fan.

“They should rename the school after him,” Tonelli says. “That’s how much he has meant to Wharton High School.” 

On Junior’s last day at Wharton, he was summoned to the auditorium where the school’s teachers were waiting for him. He received a standing ovation, two sweaters for the winter — he hates the cold — and lunch.

He got a second lunch later when the ladies who work in the cafeteria made him his favorite — pork, rice and black beans.

“Two big lunches,” Junior says, grinning ear to ear.

However, even the happiest guy in world couldn’t escape the sadness on that last day. At 2:30 p.m., he took his radio and told everyone it was time for his final call. He thanked current principal Mike Rowan and all the teachers, and it was as if the entire school wept along with Junior. 

Then, he walked out the front door, turned around, and gave the school he had served for 22 years one last glance.

“I looked at everything, and I say, ‘Okay. That’s it.’”