PREV |  of  | NEXT STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Greer Hei, a graduating senior at Cedarcrest High School in Duvall, wants to teach agriculture at one of the 200 programs in Washington schools. While working at Benthem Dairy, she is doing herd maintenance, which includes administering shots to help cows return to normal after giving birth.   Miguel Martinez, second from the right facing camera, wants to become a police officer in the Snoqualmie Valley after he finishes college. He sees it as a way of repaying the community that taught him English and got him ready for college. He is shown working on a paper for his history class.   Sam Pemble, a graduating senior at Cedarcrest High School in Duvall, hopes to own a fishing-guide business one day. In the meantime he plans to enter a plumbing apprenticeship. Pemble is fishing the Skykomish River on the opening day of steelhead season. STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES     E-mail article Print view Search Most e-mailed Most read RSS

In a small, green pocket of Duvall, a few miles from a dairy farm and past another subdivision, the counselors at Cedarcrest High School have heard it all before.

Each new class of freshmen comes to the career center, caught up in pie-in-the-sky dreams. Movie actor. Magazine model. Professional athlete.

"Rock star is huge," said Debbie Gilmore, career specialist at Cedarcrest.

As they move through high school, the kids play around with their ideas. They discover their talents. They take note of their weak spots. They get thoughtful in their talk with teachers, counselors, parents.

And by the time senior year begins, they are more realistic. They have swapped some dreams, scaled back others, found a passion that fits. With any luck, by graduation day, the whole thing comes together in a plan.

Thousands of seniors are graduating this month, in ceremonies from Seattle to Spokane. All will face challenges in the wider world, from finding the money for college to keeping the focus on career.

At Cedarcrest last week, there was Sam Pemble, who wants one day to own a fishing-guide business; Greer Hei, who hopes to teach kids about the science of farming; and Miguel Martinez, who is set on a career as a police officer.

Together they represent nothing more, and nothing less, than the spirit of graduation — a hopeful time of life, when so many teenagers are ready to get their dreams done.

There is a place where Sam Pemble goes, when girls are confusing, teachers are demanding, and his parents will just not leave him alone.

It's the Skykomish River, and it never lets him down.

He drives over there in his black pickup, pulls his driftboat off the trailer, grabs his fishing rod and shoves out onto the water.

"The noise of the river just calms me," Pemble said.

One day, if all goes according to plan, Pemble will have his own fishing-guide business, showing people how to catch steelhead. It's a specialty kind of sport that takes plenty of patience — and you've got to know just the right pockets where those chrome fish lie low.

Pemble knows what it takes to start up that business. He's taken classes at Cedarcrest in marketing, entrepreneurship and business administration. This year, he did a monthslong project on becoming a professional fisherman.

"I've just kinda had a plan and stuck with it," said Pemble, 18. "I think I'm ahead of some people, maturity-wise."

The first part of the plan is to make money. So Pemble has chosen plumbing as his first career. It's what his father does, and what his grandfather did before that. The pay is good, the work is steady — and he'll have the money he needs for his business in less than 10 years.

That's if he doesn't spend it. Already he's talking about moving out of the house, renting his own place, maybe buying a new boat down the line. His father worries sometimes: Maybe he'll latch onto a job that pays more than plumbing, but goes nowhere in the end.

"From a parenting point of view, it's about keeping them pointed and directed and not settling for a mediocre job," said his father, Michael.

It's a long haul, becoming a plumber. First, Pemble has to pass the trade exam, which includes plenty of trigonometry. Then he heads into a five-year apprenticeship, when the pay is not so good.

But it beats college. Pemble visited Gonzaga University a couple of times, where his sister is studying international business. The cramped four walls of her dormitory room — Pemble could not imagine himself inside them, for four years, poring over all those books.

That was kind of a surprise to Mark Hillestad, his marketing teacher. He saw Pemble as a sharp, curious student. Always made his points clear and convincing in class. Always had a sweet, easy way of working with people on projects.

He even took the classes he'd need for a four-year-college, just in case.

All of it will come in handy later, his teacher said, when Pemble sets up that fishing-guide business. About half of small businesses fail within six months. But the boy has a good combination going for him: strong skills, a tough work ethic, and the humility to ask for help.

"I think he'll be very successful," said Hillestad, a former adviser to small businesses. "We always say: Pick something you feel passionate about."

The passion goes so far back Pemble can hardly remember how it began. His father takes it back to that first fishing trip, when the boy was 5 years old. They've gone camping many times since, studying how nature works. Pemble takes it seriously now, the shooting of a pheasant or the hooking of a fish.

"I have a problem with things suffering," Pemble said. "If you kill it, you'd better eat it."

On the other hand, people sometimes get too serious. Pemble sees it all the time out there on the water. The guides get so aggravated when clients miss a chance to catch a fish.

That's where Pemble has it all over the competition, his father said. The boy is just so laid back and likable. He'll get customers coming back for more, no matter how many fish they caught that day.

But first things first. Let him get through that apprenticeship.

As graduation came into view, Pemble had a "here we go" type of feeling, like some roller-coaster ride was about to begin. But then he took a look around his life and got confident all over again that he would get things done.

"As long as you keep your head down and go for it, I think you'll be all right," he said.

That day at the Puyallup Fair really did it.

Greer Hei was standing there, beside a row of cows, when she heard a question from a little girl, barely 8 or 9:

"Can I pet your pony?"

Hei decided right then and there to become a teacher of agricultural science.

"It wasn't her fault that someone didn't educate her," said Hei, 18. "I was just stunned."

As Snohomish County dairy princess, Hei is already going into elementary-school classrooms. She's giving kids the message: Grass is not just for playing, animals are not just for riding, dirt is not just for throwing.

She got that message early, growing up with farmers in the family. Her grandfather raises beef cattle in Port Angeles. When she was little, they would wander all around her with their tails twitching. But every time she tried to get close, they would pull away.

So when her brother started work on a dairy farm, Hei saw her chance.

"I'd make him beg for my help," she said. "But deep down inside, it was something I wanted to do, whether he begged or not."

As a teenager she started showing cows at fairs, just for fun. She called that first one "Chevelle," for her favorite car from the 1960s. She's been winning awards ever since.

"When she found her passion, she just went headlong," said Brian Trocano, her stepfather. "I'm a little envious."

In high school, she started planting organic vegetables. Now she works three days a week at Benthem Dairy, taking care of the herd.

It's long, hard hours, and the kids at school do not always understand why she does it. They wrinkled their faces when she did that project on artificial insemination in cows. Why not work at Abercrombie & Fitch?

But she'd rather be out where the wind blows low, and trees reach high in the sky. Her work has meaning out here. She breeds the cows, sees a calf come out nine months later. She gives a dose of vitamins and minerals, then watches a cow get healthy.

The other day, she wandered around in jeans and black rubber boots, asking the cows how their day was going. She scanned the herd, her chore list in hand, pointing out the quirks of each cow.

There was number 192, who likes to pull at her shirt and jeans. And number 845, who goes so slow and stubborn to the gate. And number 526, who has a habit of putting her whole head in the milk bucket.

When the owner goes away on vacation, Hei practically runs this farm herself. Does the morning chores, the evening chores, fits school somewhere in between. She even sleeps over at the farm, just to make sure the cows are OK.

"If they're calving in the middle of the night, and something goes wrong, then I'm here to help them," she said.

That's the kind of girl she is, said her horticulture teacher, Carl Jensen. She takes on that same kind of responsibility at school, running the greenhouse during vacation. Anytime there's a job to do, her hand is the first one in the air.

But Hei will need more than a strong work ethic to get the title of teacher. She'll have to get a degree at Washington State University, the only university in the state to certify teachers in agriculture. The competition to get in the program is stiff: Only 25 students are accepted each year.

And staying in could be a challenge.

Hei has dyslexia. She speaks well enough — it's just putting those words on paper that's the problem.

"She can do it," Jensen said. "But it will be a struggle."

For now, Hei is staying busy with the duties of dairy princess, representing the industry in classrooms, at YMCAs, in the Legislature. She already has two years of college tuition paid for, just by winning a Washington Award for Vocational Excellence. So next fall, she'll start classes at Bellevue Community College, with the hope of transferring to WSU in 2006. And she'll keep working on the farm.

It's hard, dirty work, and plenty of boys get intimidated by a girl who can pick up a 120-pound bale of hay. So if you ask Hei, she'll probably end up marrying a man who works the land. "I don't care if it's a beef farmer, or a dairy farmer, or a pig farmer," she said. "As long as it's a farmer."

She could never afford her own farm on a teacher's salary. But if she married into one, well, she could work on it in her spare time.

And what if some of her students wanted to show animals, but had no place to put them?

She could offer up her farm to them. They could board those animals in her barn, for some hard work on the land in return.

His father started working in the field as a child.

His mother did not make it past middle school.

So Miguel Martinez is going to college, no matter what the cost.

"It'll be a challenge," he said. "And at the end, an achievement."

This fall Martinez starts classes at Washington State University in Pullman. His hope is to study psychology there, in preparation for a career as a police officer. That kind of learning could help him on the job, Martinez said — give him a better grip on why people behave the way they do, and what he can do to help.

It will be a struggle to piece together the tuition. Martinez has a couple of thousand dollars in scholarships, plus the money he's saved from two jobs, one doing maintenance at the local Shell station, the other as a busboy at Ixtapa Mexican restaurant.

His parents will give as much, and as often, as they can.

"He's the first one that's going more into school and trying to get his dreams true," said his older sister Anabel, a homemaker in Monroe. "It's a really big thing for my parents."

Across the country, Latino students have struggled to make it to college, held back by barriers in language, culture and money.

Because his parents still struggle with English, Martinez has taken charge of his younger brothers' education. He meets with their teachers at Tolt Middle School. He works alongside them in the afternoon, helping with homework.

"I'm trying to get him through high school, at least," said Martinez, speaking of one brother, who struggles more in school. "The other one wants to go to college."

Martinez moved to this country from Mexico with his family at the age of 3. He lived first in Monroe, then moved to Duvall. Along the way, Martinez said, he found plenty of people to help.

They taught him English. They invited him to play soccer. They got him ready for college.

The whole thing was a big surprise to the son of a migrant farmer. So after some thinking, he decided to join the police department, to protect the people who gave him so much.

"It just hit me," said Martinez, 18. "It's a way to serve the community."

Martinez gets to worrying about the world sometimes. He worries about North Korea, and the nuclear-weapons threat there. He worries about Iraq, and when the troops will get pulled out.

He's tried to do his part in high school. He became vice president of Key Club, a group that does community service. He joined Partners in Prevention, a group that tries to stave off substance abuse. He got active in the local church, volunteering for any number of activities.

Dan Armstrong, a history teacher, has watched him grow over the years. He remembers those early days of high school, when Martinez was the quiet kid in class, a shy, slight figure who would not raise his hand.

One day he pulled Martinez into a debate, and suddenly saw it all: the keen mind, the sharp wit, the kind of empathy so many kids are missing. The boy also had a work ethic that would not quit.

"There are so many kids out there who are blessed with natural ability and talent and squander it," said Armstrong, who coached Martinez in soccer. "He's exactly the opposite."

Armstrong will find new kids to nurture next year, as another class of freshmen arrives at Cedarcrest High School. But he is expecting an ache in those early days, when Martinez is missing from the classroom.

"It's the empty-nest syndrome with some students," Armstrong said. "He's one of them."

Cara Solomon: 206-464-2024 or csolomon@seattletimes.com