September 28, 2007

Fontana student is rewarded for her dedication

By BOB OTTO

Most students miss a day of school here or there. The sniffles, the flu bug, or a toothache might get them down. And when they get older, playing hooky becomes pretty tempting. But not for Gabby Smith.

Gabby faithfully showed up for school from Kindergarten through 12th grade without missing one single day. Neither the sniffles, nor the temptation to cut classes could sway her from her goal: perfect attendance. And if you're counting, that's somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,500 consecutive school days.

That's quite a feat. And when Fontana Auto Depot President Dora Houck found out, she decided a reward seemed in order. So with the collaboration of Gabby's mother, Claudia, the Auto Depot decided to customize Gabby's older Toyota Corolla.

To keep the surprise under wraps, Claudia told Gabby that her car had a "recall problem" and had to be taken into the Auto Depot. From there, the Depot's experts customized the car with a new paint job, entertainment center, stereo system, television, CD player, fancy wheels and rims and an embroidered head rest that reads, "Titans 6."

And running along each side of the hood reads "K-12 Perfect Attendance" in bold, black letters.

The Titans 6? While Gabby was perfecting her attendance, she was also perfecting her softball skills as an All-CIF star at Fontana High School, which earned her an athletic scholarship to Cal State Fullerton.

Led by Joe Huerta, motor sports manager, the shop worked on the car from Friday, Sept. 14 until Saturday morning, Sept. 22.

"We had 20 vendors contributing, and six people working on the car in one stage or another every day since last Friday and finished early this morning (Saturday)," said Houck. "The whole dealership was abuzz. We were excited to honor a local student."

But first came an "Oh no!" It seems the Auto Depot had already honored a student, Jessica Bautista of La Habra, for her perfect attendance, but didn't realize that right before them was Gabby, who graduated from Fohi in 2006. We had to fix that, said Houck.

"We weren't expecting to honor a second student, but we did one for Jessica, so we knew we needed to (honor) Gabby too," said Houck.

The honor is called "Student of Distinction" for excellence in attendance and achievement. And for the girls, their gleaming, super-customized cars are truly distinctive.

"It's awesome, all my friends are jealous," said Jessica. "My mom got her car kicked out of the driveway. She has to park in the street so I can have my car in the driveway." (Customized cars tend to attract the attention of thieves.)

A surprise party was held for Gabby last Saturday at the dealership. About 75 family and friends gathered around the car waiting for her arrival. And as Gabby walked up to her car, Houck pulled off the blue car covering, unwrapping a gleaming gray and black sports car. Tears weld up in Gabby's eyes. Her family and friends applauded while the perfect attendance girl walked around her car before climbing into the front seat.

"I'm happy, I like everything," she said. "It's like a new car."

A perfect reward for perfect attendance. But that's not all. She was also presented with $100 certificates each from Inland Federal Credit Union and Valley Federal Credit Union, and certificates for perfect attendance from the Fontana Unified School District and Supervisor Gloria Negrete McLeod.