When FBI Special Agent Jaime Barajas looked out onto the nearly 200 faces gathered for an assembly Friday at McKenzie Junior High School, he saw himself.

Barajas, whose fledgling foundation donates money to the Guadalupe Union School District, grew up in the fields of the Santa Maria Valley, one of nine children picking broccoli and strawberries with his parents. He went on to college -- playing tennis at Hancock College and Cal State Northridge -- and a successful career in law enforcement, first with the Los Angeles Police Department and now with the FBI.

Now, as founder of the Barajas Foundation, he stops by the school every year trying to inspire them to work hard in school and their community, while honoring them for their effort in the classroom.

This year, Barajas was joined by Jose Nichols, former principal at Mary Buren Elementary who is now director of the Barajas Foundation, McKenzie alumnus Anthony Santana, an executive in the medical industry, and Joe Ayala, an attorney with the Legislative Counsel Bureau in Sacramento.

Together, they told the students the effort they expend in school will eventually bear fruit.

"I was sitting exactly where you're sitting," he told the 200 eighth-graders stuffed into the school's tiny cafeteria. "We want you to believe anything is possible."

Santana is another local kid -- a second-generation Guadalupean -- who made good. He wasn't the first of his generation in Guadalupe. His father also attended the school.

Santana went from McKenzie to Righetti High School to Hancock College and to Cal Poly before launching a successful 27-year career in the medical industry. He works for Covidien, a global company that manufactures and sells surgical equipment.

Santana said his path wasn't always straight and smooth -- he essentially failed his first quarter at Cal Poly -- but it paid off.

"My dad used to tell me, 'If you take the easy road, life will be hard. If you take the hard road, life will be easy," he said. "You'll fail along the way. We all fail. Failure is part of success. You have to keep pushing."

Original post:
McKenzie alumni inspire, honor students