‘It’s kind of the impossible factor of it’: Laguna Beach graduate Tanner Burton turns to the skies
There’s just something impossible about flight, Tanner Burton said.
“I’ve always kind of had a passion for flight. Anything with flight just interests me,” Tanner said. “I guess I just want to take that passion and just run with it. I think it’s kind of like the impossible factor of it. It almost seems like it can’t be achieved, yet we see it every day and it’s just interesting to break the barrier between us and the ground.”
And after graduating from Laguna Beach High School on June 11 with 254 other seniors in a drive-through ceremony at Guyer Field, Tanner’s turning his eyes to the skies as he heads off to Arizona State University this fall.
The Laguna Beach High School’s graduation ceremony was initially set to be online, but the district pivoted to a drive-through at Guyer Field.
Assuming, of course, that classes won’t be held online, which Tanner hopes he doesn’t have to do for his first semester of college.
Tanner said he plans to study aeronautical management technology while at the Tempe-based university, adding that he was most interested in the business side of aviation, the logistics and what goes on in the background of flight.
“I’m kind of hoping everything stables out again. We’re kind of on this upward path back to normal, almost, and I just don’t want to see it fall back into the same place we were two months ago,” Tanner said of the coronavirus pandemic that has swept through the country. “I think I learn better in physical classes and just seeing people, it helps with my emotional state, I guess.”
He describes himself as easygoing, patient and having a “pretty good” work ethic but admitted he could be clumsy. He said he likes to surf and to go hiking and traveling whenever he can, adding that he hasn’t done the latter lately.
After beating Stage II Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Laguna Beach High School’s Anthony Ramirez said he decided that fashion was where his heart really was.
Tanner said he most looks forward to immersing himself in a new environment, miles away from where he grew up in Laguna Beach. He said he loves his life here, but that he felt it was important to experience different places and people.
While in high school, he was in cross country and was part of the theater program, which he said he joined because of a production of “Guys and Dolls,” which he said his sister was in when she was in high school. This year, he played Joseph in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”
He said his best memories of high school were spent with theater or his cross-country team. One of his favorite memories was when he went to Ireland with his cross-country team in his junior year, but added that other highlights were when he got cast to play Joseph and also Lumiere in the high school’s production of “Beauty and the Beast.” Last year’s prom, he added, was pretty fun.
But, like his peers who have seen their senior years upended by the coronavirus pandemic, Tanner said he’s been trying to stay hopeful, but admitted that online learning has been difficult without being able to see everyone in-person.
“I don’t think it can get any worse from here. I think we’re only going up right now, maybe not right now,” Tanner said. “Maybe in a couple of months. I’ve just been trying to stay as hopeful as I can.”
Honoring this year’s graduating seniors from high schools in Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Laguna Beach and other parts of Orange County.
He said he felt it was a “bummer” that his senior class wasn’t able to partake in traditional senior year activities, but added that he knew that they were living through a huge historical event and that he felt having something like Grad Night or prom wouldn’t change what he and his class were living through.
He said he was thankful that the high school could hold a drive-through graduation at all, adding that he felt it was most important that he and his senior class got to be together — even if it meant that he had to get his degree while he was in a car and not in a traditional ceremony.
“We’ve been through so much throughout these past 12 years. I think that’s the most important thing,” Tanner said. “Just coming together and celebrating our accomplishments together.”
Tanner said he hopes that the COVID-19 cases won’t pick up, but while the pandemic is still going, he said he’ll take it one day at a time.
“My life is on pause,” he said, “[but] it’s not really done.”
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