2 years ago, Rosemary Anderson’s Duke Mitchell was on the verge of washing out of high school. Look at him now.
Duke Mitchell, 18, had struggled to imagine this day. And at times so did his teachers. Duke Mitchell, a former high school student from Rosemary Anderson High School in Rockwood, fell behind in credits in 2022 due to erratic attendance and inattention to classwork. Despite this, he returned to the school last fall determined to earn his remaining credits and graduate. He graduated from high school at Portland State University's Viking Pavilion with a total of 18 credits. Despite his struggles, Duke's classmates and teachers remained committed and deeply attached to him. He was nominated for emcee of the graduation ceremony by Camille Konneker, an academic counselor at the school. The school is run by Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center, a nonprofit that provides job training and placement, mentoring and other services primarily for people of color and low-income people.
Veröffentlicht : vor 11 Monaten durch Noelle Crombie in Entertainment
Editor’s note: When The Oregonian/OregonLive wrote about Duke Mitchell in 2022 in our series, “The Safest Place,” he fell behind in credits at Rosemary Anderson High School in Rockwood, where he, his classmates and teachers worked to cope with the heavy toll of gun violence on the campus. Today is a different story.
Duke Mitchell sprang from his seat, a jolt of joy radiating through his lanky frame like an electrical current.
Last Saturday afternoon, the 18-year-old made his way to the stage at Portland State University’s Viking Pavilion, a smile spreading across his face the moment he spotted one of his former teachers across the arena.
He fiddled with his blue graduation cap as he waited for his name to be called, the tassel bobbing as he bounced on his toes. His cap sat atop the neat cornrows that his big sister carefully worked on that morning.
Duke had struggled to imagine this day.
At times so did his teachers.
He had arrived in fall 2021 at Rosemary Anderson High School’s East campus; erratic attendance and inattention to classwork left him so far behind that graduation seemed out of reach.
Yet Duke remained tethered to this small alternative school in a strip mall set back from Southeast 182nd Avenue. On the days he showed up, the sound of his voice carried down the hallway, announcing his arrival before he stepped into class. His teachers and the school staff grew deeply attached to him, even as they worried about his safety outside of school.
Yes, Duke could be exasperating. He remained obsessed with the dangerous spectacle of illicit street racing. He didn’t always channel his adolescent energy in productive ways. But he never shed his child-like softness even as he endured traumatic blows, like the fatal shooting in 2022 of his good friend and classmate, Dante McFallo. McFallo’s homicide remains unsolved.
“When I say he’s delightful, it’s an understatement,” Camille Konneker, an academic counselor at Rosemary Anderson, said on the day Duke graduated.
“He’s a particular type of light and I want the world to have that particular type of light,” she said.
Duke gravitated to Konneker, a steady presence at the school. When it came time to pick a student to serve as emcee of the graduation ceremony, Konneker nominated Duke.
The campus is one of four alternative high schools and one middle school run by Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center, a longstanding nonprofit that also provides job training and placement, mentoring and other services primarily for people of color and low-income people, including those entangled in the criminal justice system.
During the pandemic and its immediate aftermath, the East campus lost five students to violence, all young men of color. Two more were shot and survived.
For Duke, who lives with his doting grandmother in an apartment in Rockwood, Rosemary Anderson represented the ultimate safe harbor.
Duke stepped away from the school in early 2023 to enroll in the Oregon Youth Challenge Program, a military-style school in central Oregon focused on credit recovery. He returned to Rosemary Anderson last fall, determined to earn his remaining credits and graduate.
On Saturday afternoon, Duke swept into the arena, a blur of energy.
He carried a little kid’s knapsack adorned with sharks, his cap and gown still wrapped in plastic inside. Konneker gave him the backpack a few days earlier, the latest in a succession of replacements for school bags Duke had lost or misplaced over the years.
He hastily donned the cap and gown, then darted down the hallway toward the gymnasium that served as a staging area. Teacher after teacher stopped to congratulate him, wrapping him in hugs. They felt a mix of relief and pride for the young man they’d cajoled and pushed toward this milestone.
One stood to the side and wept. “This is one of my favorite days,” said Duke’s English teacher Andrew Moore, known around school as Iz. “This is what we work for.”
Even on this happy day, Duke stirred a sense of apprehension in his teachers.
For as hopeful as they felt, they knew his path after graduation remained precarious and out of focus; in typical Duke fashion, he rattled off possibilities that include enrolling in a welding program, training to be a wildland firefighter or opening his own mechanic shop.
“This is the beginning of a new story for him, a new chapter,” said Rosemary Anderson dean Roy Rhone Sr., who everyone calls Yab. “It’s time to turn the page. We talked about some things, an apprenticeship or some type of program for tech. Hopefully, he sticks to that.”
Rhone served as a father figure of sorts for Duke whose own father has long been absent.
When Rhone learned Rosemary Anderson High School’s graduation would take place on his day off, he nixed his weekend plans. He wasn’t about to miss the chance to celebrate Duke’s accomplishment.
“He did this,” Rhone said. “I knew it was going to be a struggle, but he did this. It was hard. This was a lot.”
After introducing the lineup of speakers, Duke took a seat with his classmates, nodding in agreement as Oregon Department of Education Director Charlene Williams talked.
Williams, a former principal at Rosemary Anderson, acknowledged the pandemic and other broad forces that shaped the class of 2024. She also spoke of the ones that face Rosemary Anderson High School students in particular.
Many arrive at the school feeling overlooked or counted out.
“I know at Rosemary Anderson you keep it real and I want to be real with you because too many of you have enough people lying to you, manipulating you and not believing in you and you prefer those of us who are going to tell you the truth,” she said. “Remember, Nelson Mandela said this: that the greatest glory in living is not in never failing but in rising every time we fall. So tell your neighbor: My comeback game is strong.”
It was time to collect his diploma.
Duke beamed as his name was called out. He crossed the stage, pausing for a moment for a photograph, gripping the blue diploma case.
Later, he studied the slip of paper with its ornate black lettering.
“This certifies that Duke Mitchell has satisfactorily completed a course of study prescribed for graduation from this school and is therefore awarded this Oregon Diploma.”
He stood still amid the swirl of his classmates, a wave of relief washing over him.
“I am ready for everything. I am ready for life,” he said before walking back that thought.
It struck him as overly ambitious for now. The open question of what comes next lingered. He kept his sights modest.
“I am ready for what comes tomorrow.”
-- Noelle Crombie is an enterprise reporter with a focus on criminal justice. Reach her at 503-276-7184; ncrombie@oregonian.
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