Members of the Santa Ynez Valley Union High School class of 2026 reminisced on the past four years and were encouraged to inspire others during a gusty graduation ceremony on Friday.

Families and friends packed the stands at the high school’s Rio Memorial Field, holding signs and balloons while cheering as 190 graduates filed onto the field on a windy afternoon.

Of those graduates, 90% are continuing to higher education, and the others are entering military service, religious vocation or the workforce, Principal Tori Martinez shared. 

“Every path represented here today is meaningful, and every graduate here has something that can contribute to the world beyond the high school,” she said.

The graduating class also earned more than $217,000 in local scholarships, Martinez added.

Graduation speakers took to the microphone to highlight their tight-knit community, reflect on the past four years and motivate their fellow graduates as they step into a new phase of life.

Elena Sleiman shared that the graduating class felt like a family who had gone through the highs and lows of high school together, including ninth-grade physics class. 

“Having a team of people that love and care about you is what makes this valley so great, but now we are asked to take a step out of these mountains that hug us in, rise to the tops of our toes and look over at our future,” she said.

She also said that the next part of their lives doesn’t have to be a new chapter but rather “a new album or a song following the interlude.”

Like Sleiman, Greyson Foy took a trip down memory lane, highlighting some of his favorite experiences while attending Santa Ynez High. 

“Now that we have emerged victorious in our four-year battle of attrition that included a lot of principals,” he said, “we get a chance to reflect, and those aren’t the things we remember.”

A school trip to Italy and France where people got sick and “started puking in backpacks,” the boys volleyball team’s historic CIF Central Section championship win and prom all made Foy’s list of memorable events. 

He also stressed to the audience the importance of finding a role model, which, for him, includes Spider-Man and LeBron James. 

“This is a dream I have for everyone,” he said. “I want everyone to be inspired and to continue to inspire those around you.”

Graduate Lewie Mathis addressed the crowd, quoting his favorite poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Victorian poet Alfred Lord Tennyson. 

Mathis explained to the audience that the poem is about a suicidal charge of 600 British cavalry troops and said it relates to the graduating class of 2026, “while it may be a stretch.”

“I am not ready; none of us are ready,” Mathis said. 

He encouraged his classmates to lean on the lessons they learned during their four years of high school as things such as taxes, global conflict and economic recession are in the background.

“Together, we discovered that no task is too daunting if we rely on each other and laugh about it,” Mathis said. 

He also said they’ve already been given the tools to achieve happiness and fulfillment and to lead “incredible yet imperfect lives.” 

“There’s no class I would rather arrive on the battlefield of life with than the Santa Ynez graduating class of 2026,” Mathis said.

Santa Ynez Valley Union High School District Superintendent Kimberly Sheehan and Board of Education members presented the graduates with their diplomas. 

“As you step into your next chapter, remember you will always have a home here,” Sheehan said.