As the summer time comes and students start to prepare for finals, the Performing Arts Magnet, also called PAM, puts on their annual award ceremony to congratulate all members on their success. The ceremony is held at the Grand Theater here in Tracy, CA, and consists of all high school grades from freshmen to seniors. When the clock hits six most students start or are just finishing getting ready for the formal event as well as some seniors who are performing begin to start warming up to prepare.

The Performing Arts Magnet coordinator, Tom Renner, begins with an overall speech talking about how the awards ceremony will go and thanks everyone for their hard work and commitment to the programs they are in. Moving on, two choir students were chosen to perform for all award candidates and their parents at the ceremony. Both singers performed completely opposite pieces then each-other and gave the audience two views of our choir program, here at Tracy High School.

The first awards handed out are for all first-year recipients. Most may think this means freshmen which is not true at any point in High school you can join the Performing Arts Magnet making it easy to get your awards at any point in time during your years here. This award for first-year students is a part to place onto your lettermen upon getting one, it is a nice sleeve patch that represents all areas on the Performing Arts.

After awarding first-year members, the theater pathway performers are up. Senior Sierra Wypich performs an amazingly done monologue she once performed for professors during her senior recital. Sierra had the audience in shock once she started, the monologue was very much relatable to all and continuously was funny throughout.

The next award is for second-year members. The most favorite award for kids to start out with is the second year award because it is a Block T. Most students involved in the performing arts do not have the chance to get any other block T through their high school career because they are very much invested into the arts. Another cool factor of the second year award is that the Block T colors are a switch from every other T available at Tracy High. Instead of a yellow T with a green border, the colors are a green T with a yellow border, signifying the Importance of the program to the school to change the colors only for this program.

The next performer was a Violinist from the orchestra pathway. The performer played beautifully and kept the audience very much entertained throughout his short performance. At this point of the award ceremony, the upper-classmen begin to get excited because it is now almost their turn to receive the award for all the hard work they have put in since the very first day joining the arts at Tracy High.

Now third-year recipients get two awards if they completed an extra activity. First, the third year recipients all get a point the had two theater heads connected that represent the performing arts all around. Then, if the third year member completed a research paper and contacted colleges to prepare for senior year and college admission, they also received a Performing Arts Certificate of Achievement. Not all third-year members this year completed the research paper making it so not every third-year member was able to have the ability to receive the Certificate of Achievement.

Senior Zack Hardebeck is a violinist as well in the orchestra pathway and had to continuously keep his GPA at a certain point to be able to continue on with the program through the years. Zack plans to move onto college after graduation this year and continue on with his love for the violin and the performing arts industry.

Third-year members will also receive a cord that will be given to them upon graduation if completed early.

The last performer was from the Band pathway who also passes as an orchestra pathway. This senior played the flute for the audience at the awards ceremony and brought light into others eyes about the specific instrument that not a lot always think of wanting to play. After the amazing flute performance, all performing arts pathway teachers come onto stage to award all applicants able to receive a cord and award it to them by calling their name and giving them a short moment to shine on stage in front of everyone.

Concluding the ceremony with another short speech from Renner about the performing arts as well as awarding all cord recipients their cords at this time as well as all four-year member with their very own performing arts medallion and all five-year member with the Performing Arts Magnet Diploma of completion. Many students apart of the Performing Arts Magnet here at Tracy High plan to continue oil with their professions in the musical and theatrical pathways through life after high school.