College roommates’ daughters share honors at San Jose High

When Amy Girard and Michelle Albertson were roommates at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo they couldn’t have imagined that decades later they would be in the audience as their daughters — Mia Girard and Grace Albertson — graduated among the valedictorians from San Jose High School on Tuesday.

Albertson concedes it’s a strange coincidence, but Girard said it was a little bit planned, too. “You never actually think ‘Let’s move to San Jose together and just keep hanging out forever,’ ” Albertson said. “We didn’t know 25 years later we’d still be down the street.”

Their families live within a block of each other in San Jose’s Northside neighborhood and their daughters were born just six months apart. Starting in the same kindergarten class, they went to elementary and middle school together before entering San Jose High as freshmen in the 2019-20 school year, which was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Tuesday’s graduation ceremonies at the Municipal Rose Garden, Grace and Mia were among seven students who were honored as valedictorians. Grace gave the welcome to the audience, and Mia was one of the commencement speakers. The girls posed for photos after the ceremony with their proud moms and other family members and friends, but after this summer their paths will finally diverge for the first time: Mia Girard is heading to UC-Berkeley in the fall and Grace Albertson is off to Cal State-Fullerton.

SAP CENTER SENDOFF: While San Jose Unified’s high school seniors graduated at the Municipal Rose Garden this past week, middle school promotion took place at SAP Center, a venue that probably had a bit more of a wow factor for the eighth-graders and their families.

More than 1,800 students from six different schools — Muwekma Ohlone, Willow Glen, Castillero, Hoover, Bret Harte and Muir — capped their school year at the Shark Tank (with more than 12,000 friends and family members watching). So how did San Jose Unified score such a primo spot for promotion ceremonies? They didn’t have to pull any strings with S.J. Sharkie, rather it’s just one of the opportunities the San Jose Arena Authority and Community Events program provides each year for nonprofit, educational and service organizations in the city. Check it out at www.sjaa.com/city-and-community-events-program.html.

COME DANCING: If it’s summer in the South Bay, I guess that means it’s time to get out your dancing shoes. The monthly CityDance San Jose returns June 15 to the Circle of Palms outside the San Jose Museum of Art. Of course, if you’re planning to head to the first session — which includes a professional dance lesson followed by dancing — you’d better bring your cowboy boots for Country Line Dancing.

Following weeks include K-Pop (July 20), Salsa (Aug. 17) and World Dance (Sept. 21), all between 6 and 9 p.m. You don’t need to register in advance, and dancers can also enjoy free admission to the San Jose Museum of Art and buy food from a special menu from the museum’s cafe, El Cafecito by Mezcal.

WRITE PLACE, WRITE TIME: Williams Briggs, the former director of San Jose State’s journalism department, has been diving into lesser-known areas of California history and has produced a couple of books on the subjects. Last year, he published “Badass Lawman,” the story of 19th century sheriff John Hicks Adams, and he’s followed that up with “That Pirate, Bouchard,” about a series of rare pirate raids in California conducted in the early 1800s by French-born privateer Hipolito Bouchard.