Hannan Adely – hadely@lohud.com – June 23, 2009
MOUNT VERNON – When Cinnamon Lewis delivers her graduation speech tomorrow, she will thank her teachers, reminisce about the prom and joke about her classmates’ fashion choices as freshmen.
She’ll keep to herself the more painful memories, like missing school to care for a sibling, making Father’s Day cards in class while her father was in prison and working seven days a week to help pay her family’s rent.
For Lewis, those events were setbacks, but they never killed her dream of being top of the class. After four years of struggle and hard work, Lewis graduates tomorrow from Mount Vernon High School as the class salutatorian. She will attend Columbia University in the fall. “I always knew I was going to college,” said the 18-year-old. “I felt like nothing or no one was going to stop me.”
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