August 1, 2007

A red letter day
Whittier student gets new car for perfect attendance
By Kelly Corrigan Correspondent

WHITTIER - Without having her parents pressure her, or extend any bribes, Jessica Bautista showed up at school day after day, after day, until she graduated from La Habra High School in June.

One time in fifth grade, the athletic brunette said, she suffered from the flu, missed two hours of school, but pumped enough liquids to return that day.

Bautista, 18, said she didn't even notice she had perfect attendance until after she graduated from sixth grade. Although some days she would forget to wake up on time, Bautista was never absent, from kindergarten through high school.

That's more than 3,000 days.

In appreciation Bautista's parents, Carlos and Paula, gave her a 2006 fire engine-red Chevrolet Cobalt LS, two-door coupe, a year before she graduated.

Bautista's first realization of her prefect attendance presented a challenge. "My first year of junior high was so hard. I kept dwelling on it but I knew I had to keep it up. Then in my last four years in high school, it was easy."

Bautista played varsity water polo at La Habra for four years. Playing sports, Bautista said, helped her to prevent missing any school days.

"I was active, healthy and immune to things."

Although sometimes, when Bautista had to leave school early for water polo events, her teachers would eagerly jump on the chance of marking her as absent.

"If I was ever absent in class for a field trip or school function, my teachers would get excited and say, `Oh look, she's absent today!' Then I'd get a letter saying I was absent but later I'd be excused because I was on a field trip," she said.

Her friends think she's crazy for her mere ability to have kept such a record. But they do enjoy her newly fashioned ride.

In June, AutoDepot's Motorsports Department Manager Joe Huerta saw Bautista's story on the news and thought he could employ AutoDepot to give her a car.

When he learned that Bautista's parents had already bought her a car, he made a deal with them.

Bautista's parents then told Jessica that her car needed to be recalled for body work at the dealership in Fontana for four weeks.

Last Saturday, when Bautista went to pick up her ride, they surprised her with her improved, customized Cobalt.

But before they handed over the keys, the employees of the dealership presented her with another, similar looking car, one that Bautista immediately recognized as an imposter.

"I said, `this is not my car. I know my dad's not gonna pay for it.' Then I walked around the corner and everybody was there and they pulled the cover off the car and I couldn't believe it," she said.

Her new two-tone candy paint job was still fresh, the seats had been reupholstered, two DVD television sets had been placed in the headrests of her seats, she now had power and tinted windows, a new spoiler, upgraded suspension, black rims, a touch-screen stereo with new speakers, amplifiers and woofers.

In black-and-red letters, K-12 Perfect Attendance was painted on the hood.

In the fall, Bautista will attend Cal State Fullerton. Her ultimate goal is to become a forensic scientist for the CIA.

Bautista said her parents never put pressure on her to succeed but they led by example.

When speaking of her dad, who is an officer for the Garden Grove Police Department, Bautisita said, "I know his goal was to become a cop. I looked at him and I thought, `I want to follow my goal.' And my mom's a strong woman and she said she would always support us no matter what we do. So this was my first goal," she said.