Congratulations EVIT Completers!
EVIT students, families and staff packed the Chicago Cubs Sloan Park Stadium in Mesa over two nights in May to celebrate the accomplishments of over 1,700 program completers. Cubs officials estimated over 13,000 people attended the ceremonies! Highlights included student award winners, the national anthem performed by a student with a Mariachi band, guest speaker KTAR radio host Mike Broomhead, and a tribute to Emergency Medical Technician instructor Traci Plough, who continued to teach during the pandemic even as she battled cancer.

Students of the Year
Also at the completion ceremonies, two EVIT students were honored as Students of the Year: Zeina Moumneh, a SanTan Charter School senior in the Medical Assistant program, and Kylie HuntsInWinter, an Arizona Connections Academy senior in the Criminal Justice program. Zeina is a member of National Honor Society, National Technical Honor Society and National Society of High School Scholars and is salutatorian of her class. She completed over 130 hours of volunteer work at Banner Gateway Medical Center, and will be attending Chandler-Gilbert Community College on a Presidential Scholarship next year. Kylie has been a straight-A student at EVIT and served as captain for the second-year Criminal Justice class. As a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, she also has become an advocate for the Standing Rock Sioux people and for missing and murdered indigenous women and the rights of indigenous people. Kylie is a national and world martial arts champion, and has been accepted to Harvard University, where she plans to study political science and continue her advocacy work. As Students of the Year, Zeina and Kylie each won a car serviced and detailed by students in EVIT’s Automotive and Diesel Technologies programs. Congrats, Zeina and Kylie!

Arizona’s Top Scores
This spring, seven EVIT programs – Aviation, Collision Repair, Emergency Medical Technician, Fire Science, Interior Design & Merchandising, Networking and Veterinary Assistant – had the state’s top average scores on their CTE Assessment. Three Vet Assistant students scored a perfect 100 on their exams. In addition, six satellite programs in the EVIT Career Technical Education District (CTED) had the state’s top average scores on the following assessments: Culinary Arts (Queen Creek), Agriscience (Chandler), Bioscience (Red Mountain), Carpentry (Queen Creek), Education Professions (Red Mountain) and Stagecraft (Red Mountain).

Breanna’s story
After completing EVIT’s Interior Design & Merchandising program and earning an associate degree at Mesa Community College, Breanna Bright started her interior design career as a sales rep at a tile and stone shop. But it didn’t take her very long to network in her industry and land a job as a junior designer at Wiseman and Gale in Scottsdale, where she continues to work her way up the ladder. Read Breanna’s inspiring story: http://bit.ly/evitbrightstory521