More than 1,600 TCC students to get their diplomas

NORFOLK

Kathryn Funk will become a registered nurse at age 46. Valentine Aikhu will be a step closer to creating a state-of-the-art video game. Singer/songwriter/musician Isaac Gay has an "American Idol" audition on his resume; after tonight, he'll have a college degree on it, too.

They all share space in the melting pot: 1,665 students set to graduate when Tidewater Community College holds its 52nd commencement at 7 at the Ted Constant Convocation Center in Norfolk.

One bite at a time. That's how Kathryn Funk of Portsmouth became a registered nurse.

"How you eat an elephant is how I think about dreams," said Funk, the student speaker at tonight's commencement. "If you try to eat it all at once, you can't."

Little by little, though, you can get it done, she said. For Funk, that meant one class at a time - all she could handle over the years as a single mom of two.

She has been through the unthinkable - losing her Morehead City, N.C., home to a tornado spawned by Hurricane Bertha in 1997. What the funnel cloud didn't destroy, the heavy rains did.

"I took the kids, and we went into the bathroom," she said. "You could hear the walls vibrating. It's a freight train. It's like you can touch the air."

Funk regards the experience as pivotal. She resisted moving to Virginia for years, but reconsidered. After working as a bookkeeper and running a property management company with husband Craig, she enrolled in English and biology at TCC.

Nursing was always her passion, leading her to enroll in a licensed practical nursing program at Sentara Obici, graduating as valedictorian in 2009. She has a 3.9 grade-point average and will leave TCC for Old Dominion University with an associate degree in nursing.

"If you take one class and you pass that one class, you can do this," she said.

Man, did Isaac Gay want to be a quarterback. But he was home-schooled for all but one year, and that derailed his sports ambitions. Gay found another avenue.

Performing arts.

The Norfolk native made an impression as Tevye in a home-school production of "Fiddler on the Roof." He went on to sing with the Virginia Children's Chorus, placed second among college men in a national competition and earned his karate black belt en route.

Along with 25,000 others, the classically trained vocalist auditioned for a spot on "American Idol," a memorable experience in the New Jersey Nets' NBA arena.

"We got to the stadium at 3 a.m. and I didn't audition until 7 at night," he said. "We slept in the car."

Gay finished in the top 80.

When financial limitations forced him to give up visions of going to the University of Southern California or Carnegie Mellon University, he opted for TCC. He'll graduate with an associate degree in liberal arts.

He has already been accepted at Christopher Newport University, but is unsure of his next move given another recent honor: first place at the Sea Level Emerging Artist Showcase in Norfolk. He will open for Matt Wertz at Town Point Park May 20 and will have his own acoustic performance there the next night.

"I'm definitely undecided about what's next," he said. "But I've dreamed about graduating from college for a while. It's something I'm looking forward to."

He misses the street soccer and the fufu, a West African yam dish. But Valentine Aikhu, a native Nigerian, is grateful for the opportunity he and brother Frank received due to an unlikely circumstance.

They know few of the details of the plane crash in Lagos that injured their father. "I remember my father on crutches," Valentine said. The need for better medical care led the family to relocate to the United States.

For Valentine and Frank Aikhu, that meant leaving behind the place where they had spent most of their lives.

"Home is fantastic," said Valentine, who revels in the memories of hours-long soccer games played in the street. "You don't realize you haven't eaten lunch or dinner. You only know you started playing in the morning and now it's dark."

Adjusting to a new country and an American accent was difficult until the brothers discovered TCC.

Valentine, 20, has plans to become a mechanical engineer with an eye toward video-game design. Frank, 19, will graduate this summer with a computer science degree, but will walk in tonight's ceremony, which the brothers' family in Nigeria will be able to watch via live stream.

Valentine and Frank are headed to the University of Virginia in the fall. Youngest brother Kizito is set for TCC in the fall.

Says Valentine, with a twinkle: "He has big shoes to fill."

Vicki L. Friedman, (757) 222-5218, vicki.friedman@pilotonline.com