GCSC graduates 1,032 students

PANAMA CITY — Commodores who walked across the stage Friday graduated learning that there is no limit to aspiration.

Gulf Coast State College outgoing president Jim Kerley pumped up graduates for a limitless life at Friday’s commencement ceremony at the Marina Civic Center.

Of 1,032 graduates, 315 attended the ceremony. It was Kerley’s last ceremony before retiring effectively July 31.

“Never put a lid on yourself and never let someone else put a lid on you; come out of that, jump out of that,” Kerley told graduates. “I call it the law of the lid; you want to jump and not be contained.”

In silence, students clad in black robes and tasseled hats appeared to respect his words. Some shared veteran pride with the college president by donning red, white and blue decorative cords.

“Keep stretching, keep reaching for the higher ceiling,” he said. “Keep positive.”

Featured speaker and GCSC graduate James Durham represented the benefits of a positive attitude amid a crippling circumstance.

In 2010, he sustained a severe traumatic brain injury resulting from a motorcycle crash. Knowing he wasn’t guaranteed recovery, within 6-months of the crash, he recuperated and started at the college.

Through the support of family, friends, GCSC personnel and students, he persevered.

“Negativity is poison,” he told his colleagues. “Throw it away” because “if you love life, life will love you right back.”

That’s the mantra 41-year-old new graduate Rowena Curnin is singing. As a high school graduate decades ago, the Philippine immigrant and mother of two didn’t imagine she’d be graduating from college; today, she’s following a five-year plan to open tourism services business in Maui, Hawaii.

“Growing up as a kid, you always have dreams set up for yourself — finish college, get married, have children, you know,” Curnin said. “Unfortunately, in the Philippines, it’s not like here where these kids of so much opportunity because they have scholarships and grants.”

At the age of 20, she’d make $2 an hour in her native country at a hotdog stand where she’d meet her husband, a former American soldier. They’d live all around the world and in 2001, Curnin moved to Panama City.

“Maybe it’s not for me,” she said she once said of pursuing higher education. “But then, I have two kids who are school-aged and they were actually the ones that inspired me to go back to school.”

As a GCSC alumnus and current student at Florida State University Panama City, she can show her son, who is a student at the college, the value of education.

“It’s big dreams,” Curnin said regarding her future business in Maui. “But, why not?”