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Two Clovis East High graduates achieve perfect CUSD attendance

Editor's note: The Clovis Independent published an article May 30 about Clovis Unified School District graduates who had perfect attendance in school since kindergarten. Due to incomplete information from the district, two students from Clovis East High School were inadvertently left out. Congratulations to Matthew Wagner and Kristen Allread.

Timberwolves Matthew Wagner and Kristen Allread both finished their high school careers without missing a day of school.

Both Wagner and Allread have led healthy lives after scary starts -- Wagner was born two months premature and stayed in NICU for a month with ruptured lungs, while Allread required open-heart surgery at 10 months old.

"I've never really been that sick," said Wagner, who will attend Santa Clara University in the fall on a cross-country scholarship, with a major in engineering. "When I was a baby, I had something, but that was the only time. In elementary school, I might have had a fever, but I would still show up [to school] and be there long enough."

Allread, a three-year varsity golfer for Clovis East, is headed to Fresno City with the goal of becoming a high school counselor. Perfect attendance for 2,353 days wouldn't make for a bad role model. Allread even had an impact on her friends.

"They knew I did it, so they were like, 'If she can do it, I can do it,' " she said. "But they fell off the wagon when they got a little sick."

Wagner's inspiration has done a little better -- his sister, Hannah, has perfect attendance through her freshman year at Clovis East.

For both Wagner and Allread, their closest calls came in third grade. Wagner's parents tried to pull him out of class at Temperance-Kutner Elementary to leave for Disneyland, but he refused. Allread made the same stand when she was sick at Jefferson Elementary.

"Plenty of times, I felt sick," Allread said, "but I was like, 'Nope.' "

Also garnering perfect attendance in CUSD's Class of 2008 were Clovis High's Anthony Mazzei and Buchanan's Sarah Elledge.

Go online to view the Class of 2008 containing more stories, photo galleries and Golden Graduate profiles at www.clovisindependent.com.