A charged silence blanketed the Napa Valley College gym Friday night, as ASB President Chris Adams busily prepared for the influx of graduates who were soon to swarm the campus.

Rows of empty black chairs lined the polished gym floors, and Mozart echoed quietly from the speakers overhead.

The anticipation, Adams said, was palpable. It was the calm before the storm.

Twenty-three-year-old Robert Rey was the first to arrive at Napa Valley College’s 65th Commencement Ceremony. Nervously, he tucked in his shirt, which he had hurriedly put on in the Napa Valley College men’s bathroom.

A quick breath, and he was ready, he said, ready to forge ahead, tonight, tomorrow, beyond.

“Let’s do this,” said Rey, fidgeting with his collar.

“It’s all just beginning,” said 21-year-old Tanisha Walters, who arrived behind Rey with her family in tow.

After zipping up her dark green gown, Walters clutched her black heels in one hand and reached for the hand of her grandmother with the other.

“You think when you graduate high school, ‘This is the end,’ she said. “Now I feel like this is the beginning.”

Walters, of Fairfield, is the first in her family to attend college — a motivation, she said, that has never let her for a moment consider giving up. Friday, she received three associates degrees — one in general education, natural science and mathematics, and social and behavior sciences.

She has already transferred to Sacramento State, where she will study to become a social worker.

“It really starts here,” Walters said, grinning.

“I feel so happy,” her grandmother Martina cut in, stretching out her arms and lifting her head in the air.

And deservedly so, according to President Chris McCarthy.

For many, the commencement ceremony marked the end of a long, trying road.

“These students have struggled,” McCarthy said. Many have balanced school and two jobs, many are the first in their families ever to attend college, and many never even thought college could be an option.

“This celebrates everything important about education,” he said.

Jennifer Schardt, 28, has spent 11 years studying off and on at Napa Valley College. In that time, she has experienced marriage, the birth of her son, divorce, and most recently, a car accident in which she broke her neck and nearly lost her life.

“It’s been a long, hard experience,” she said, as prepared to receive multiple degrees, including one in respiratory therapy.

“This is now the end of it all,” she said.

Commencement, the culmination of 11 years for Schardt, “is all of your emotions wrapped into one — joy, sorrow, but it’s all worth it.”

It’s worth it, she said, because for what she leaves behind, “I see it as the beginning of a new experience.”

Angelo Duaso, 35, received an associates degree in respiratory therapy after only three years in the United States from the Philippines. For him, the night represents “another stage of life,” a transition, he said, to a new and exciting career and perhaps one day a medical degree.

For others, the promise of a new beginning means more than just a degree, more than just a career.

Rico Loza, a 39-year-old Puerto Rico native, said his graduation marks the beginning of a new family tradition.

A first-generation college graduate, receiving an associates degree in natural science, Loza said his goal is to set an example for his teenage children.

“My purpose is my kids,” he said. “I’m showing them I can do it, they can do it.”

In August, Loza transfers to Merritt College in Oakland where he plans to study radiology.

“I never thought I could do it,” he said. “Now I show I can, and I know I can, and so do my kids.”

“This is what we all wait for,” said Oscar De Haro, vice president of student services. “It is the accumulation of energy and joy.”

Led by McCarthy and the board of trustees, the procession wound from the quad to the gymnasium. Two hundred graduates — of the 900 who are receiving degrees or certificates — marched into the gym, where the black chairs lined the polished floors.

And with that, the graduation of 2008 began.