A student at Santa Ana's Hector Godinez
Fundamental High School will receive a national award this morning for the lengths he has gone to pursuing a career in engineering.
Frank Cabada is one of six Latino high school seniors who will be honored at the Hispanic Heritage Foundation's 14th annual Youth Awards at William Morris Endeavor in Beverly Hills.
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Cabada, who is carrying a 3.97 GPA at Godinez, is the Los Angeles region recipient of the awards “designed to honor six exceptional Latino high school
seniors across America for making strides in the Latino community. These
students have excelled in their classrooms, communities and in Math
& Engineering, Innovation & Technology, Business &
Entrepreneurship, Science & Healthcare and Education &
Community Service.” The Math & Engineering component of the awards is sponsored by Exxon/Mobil.
Organizers explain why Cabada was chosen for the “Gold” honor:
Frank Cabada is of Mexican descent and currently attends Hector Godinez
High School in Santa Ana, California. In order to become an engineer
Frank has joined every club and program imagined to help him prepare for
the field, including all the construction, architecture mathematics and
engineering mentoring programs at his school as well as being a member
of the Achievement Institute of Scientific Scholars. In addition to his
Advance Placement classes and his honors math class, Frank has also
found the time to serve as his class vice president for the past three
years. His goal when becoming a mechanical engineer is to take part in
the advancement of technologies that will benefit the community. His
teachers describe him as an intuitive, bright and thoughtful student who
is able to balance multiple responsibilities and leadership roles at
his school. He helps others by taking the time to tutor and pass along
his knowledge and love of math to his fellow classmates that struggle
with the subject. Frank is ranked at number one of his class and will
give the valedictorian speech at his graduation. This young man plans to
major in Mechanical Engineering at Pomona College or Columbia
University.
The awards presentation begins at 11 this morning.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.