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Migrants honored for their successes at education conference
NAPLES
— He is a child of migrant farmworkers and was a farmworker himself
starting at age 6.
Pedro Salazar III, a first-generation Mexican-American and an Immokalee
High School graduate, knows exactly what it’s like to grow up as a
migrant farmworker.
Salazar, along with two former Immokalee High students and two district
employees, were honored Wednesday at the 2008 Florida Migrant and
Homeless Education State Conference.
Salazar was recognized as the 2008 Migrant Success Story of the Year
during a luncheon banquet at the Naples Grande Beach Resort, 475 Seagate
Drive.
“It’s a very humble experience,” Salazar said. “It was unexpected.”
Salazar recalled helping his migrant parents harvest tomatoes in the
fields during the weekends, summers and whenever he had free time.
After graduating high school, he decided to attend a vocational school
in New Mexico.
“I didn’t want to end up in the fields,” he said.
And he didn’t.
In 1985, he established his own Immokalee-based business, Salazar
Welding Service, which later grew to Salazar Machine & Steel Inc.
In 2007, Salazar’s design and patented Produce Bin Washer GCS won state
recognition and was recently honored by the National Society of
Professional Engineers. Salazar married his high school sweetheart,
Immokalee High School Principal Linda Salazar.
Having grown up as a migrant child, Salazar knows the challenges the
school’s students and families face on a daily basis.
The successful businessman understands the importance of education and
provides internships at his business for high school students interested
in exploring a career in engineering.
More than 20 Collier County students were honored during the conference,
along with many other students across the state.
Two other Immokalee High School students awarded were class of 2008
graduates Joaquin Espinoza and Severa Trevino. Espinoza was recognized
as the 2008 Rising Male Scholar of the Year, while Trevino was named the
2008 Rising Female Scholar of the Year. Both students weren’t able to
attend the event because they were in school.
An estimated 400 staff, students and parents from across the state
attended the first joint Florida Migrant and Homeless Education
three-day conference, which provided information from local, federal and
state officials.
“We are very proud of the students,” said Alice Matthews, director of
the Florida Migrant Interstate Program. “These are the best and the
brightest.”
During the peak season in Immokalee, up to 40 percent of students
qualify for the migrant program.
The Collier County School District serves about 8,000 migrant children
and youth, officials said.
Principal Linda Salazar said the awards recognize students’ success
despite challenges in their lives.
Through his 21 years in the county’s homeless education, Earl Wiggins,
supervisor of Title I/Migrant Programs, said he has noticed a decrease
in the youth assisting their families working in the fields.
The Collier school district was also honored during the annual event. It
received the Outstanding Florida Homeless and Migrant Education Programs
Collaboration Award, presented to District Homeless Education Liaison
Karen Morgan and Wiggins. Both were recognized for their collaborative
efforts to identify homeless migrant children and youth.
“It just shows that the district can collaborate with other programs to
help kids,” Wiggins said. “If it can be done here, it can be done
anywhere.”
Award recipients received a plaque.
Wiggins said he was honored to have the conference hosted in Collier
County, which has one of the state’s largest migrant populations in its
school district.
He said the conference has been very informative, learning about changes
in the national migrant policies and procedures.
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