Graduates of the school this year have definitely gone through a lot in their high school lives- missing junior prom, enduring a pandemic, and much more. However, one young man by the name of Francisco Garcia has been on the top of Central’s academic list as being Valedictorian for his class. But, this isn’t the only major accomplishment that Francisco has achieved. He takes us on a trip down memory lane…

“I was the Brigade Commander in ROTC,” he starts. Indeed he was and now he has as of a few weeks ago, passed the torch over to Luke Guajardo in the Class of 2022 for the following year. This being one of his most coveted and well-achieved accomplishments, according to Garcia. “The Brigade Commander has been the thing I was working for ever since freshman year. I lost about 90 pounds to get to that position, and get a little more fit. That’s the biggest thing I tell other people: if you want something, you don’t have to be the superstar in terms of physical ability of mental ability, you just have to have the fire in your heart to want to do it and work toward that goal,” Garcia says. While gaining the top leadership position in JROTC, however, he has participated in a number of other things as well.

“I started on the academic team, I did do the rifle team for the first semester of freshman year, that was a very fun experience.” He continues on to say that sophomore year, he really wanted to ‘pick up,’ what he eventually wanted to become. “I had done a little bit of tutoring freshman year but I really started to pick up my sophomore and junior year to diversify a little bit, I joined the JLAB team for JROTC, and I also ended up running a successful campaign for student council and I ended up as the parliamentarian for my class. In addition, my sophomore year, I was also given the honor of being the focus in one of the commercials for Central Catholic. That was an amazing experience.” Garcia says he has also joined a lot of other small clubs such as the health science club, the National Honor Society, the National Hispanic Institute, Marianist Life, the Guardian Angels and the speech and debate team.

He says its been an amazing senior year for him, and that leadership potential in lower classmen in JROTC, as they helped plan events such as Military Ball. However, he says he is especially proud of his younger brother, who got Cadet of the Year. “I got it as a sophomore, and it was like ‘oh! I did the same thing!’ Getting to see him grow like that, but its a beautiful thing.”

To more generalized and thoughtful questions, Garcia was asked what his favorite memory was during his time at Central. He said:

“Getting Cadet of the Year. Just because I won and everyone was (chanting) ‘speech!’ And I went up there and said a little something and I had told them that I got this for you guys. It’ been really every moment that the community has been built up- the Brotherhood is such an inspiring thing where everybody builds each other up. There’s not really anybody cutting each other down everyday, it’s such a positive environment. And I got up there and said, it’s because of this environment that I was able to thrive and get this.”

He was then asked what he would miss most about the school. Garcia said:

“Just the environment. The Brotherhood. No matter who you’re with, if you’ve talked to them maybe for every class or even if you have them for no classes, you can still sit down, talk, have a lot of fun and it’s just an amazing environment that we have here. The Brotherhood is certainly what I’ll miss the most.”

One last question was if he was willing to say anything to anybody who has helped him- It could be teachers, faculty members, staff,  and his response was:

“Thank you for everything that they’ve done to help me. All the teachers have been so kind and have always worked with me and my fellow brothers on assignments that we needed to get done. They really understand that if you take a step toward the faculty, they’ll take a step toward you and you’ll see that reflected. To students too, I know some of them really look up to me. I would say, you can do the same things too. I’m not anymore special than any of you are and really all it is is having the drive to succeed.”

As of right now, Francisco says he is committed to St. Mary’s University here in San Antonio where he will major in Biology with a minor in Mathematics.