Longtime pals to graduate from WSUV together

Christina Hamilton and Breanna Shores have been inseparable since they were students at Prairie High School in 1998.

“We’ve been hanging out together ever since,” said Shores, 31.

“We’re like family,” Hamilton, 33, added.

Shores nodded in agreement.

Like many other milestones in their lives, graduating from college will be accomplished together. On Saturday, Hamilton and Shores, who call each other Christi and Bre, respectively, will be among 975 students who graduate in Vancouver from Washington State University.

The friends, who served as student senators at WSU Vancouver, will deliver the commencement address by standing at the podium together. It should prove to be an engaging address. Hamilton and Shores are such familiar friends that they laugh easily and finish each other’s sentences.

Neither woman went straight to college after high school.

“We had some growing up to do first,” Hamilton said.

That included traversing life’s challenges, both insignificant and enormous. Along the way, they leaned on each other.

Hamilton married a man with young children and helped raise the children. Later, the couple divorced.

At age 20, Shores had thyroid cancer. She moved to Arizona to become a licensed massage therapist but decided the work didn’t suit her and moved back to Vancouver.

In their late 20s, both women had worked a variety of jobs when they decided to go to college.

“I decided to actually have a goal in life,” Shores said.

“I was thinking to take my career in a different direction,” Hamilton said. “Bre did, too. She had the balls to say it.”

In January 2011, they enrolled at Clark College and took as many classes together as possible. Both earned their associate degree from Clark in 2013.

“But we had bigger dreams than that,” Hamilton said.

“Although we didn’t know specifically what our dreams were,” Shores added.

In the fall of 2013, they transferred to WSU Vancouver as juniors and entered the same program. When they cross the stage Saturday, both women will received the same degree, a Bachelor of Arts in social sciences with a focus on personnel psychology and human resource management.

Although juggling school, work and personal lives was sometimes overwhelming, the friends encouraged each other when the going got tough.

“I don’t know how many times I thought, ‘What am I doing?’?” Shores said.

“And how many times did I tell myself, ‘I suck’?” Hamilton added. “But we proved to be pretty danged good students.”

Were they better students than in high school?

“Oh, yeah!” Shores said, laughing. “Now, I understand the importance of school.”

Both women are older than the average 26-year-old student at WSU Vancouver.

“We have real-life experience,” Hamilton said.

“Time teaches you things you don’t know when you’re 18, 19, 20,” Shores agreed. “I’m glad I waited (to go to college). I wouldn’t have been as dedicated.”

“We’re older than our advisers, I’m pretty sure,” Hamilton said.

Shores nodded. “We are. But it worked in our favor.”

All of their hard work has paid off. Both have accepted jobs in their field.

Shores accepted the position of human resources information systems compliance coordinator with Central City Concern, a nonprofit in Portland. She starts her job today.

Hamilton had three job offers. She accepted a recruitment specialist position with Fuel Medical Group in Camas. She starts her job May 14.

The friends have taken multiple beach trips and camping trips together, but in June, they’re celebrating graduation by taking a seven-day Caribbean cruise together with two other friends.

Were the late-night papers and study sessions worth it?

“I never thought I’d be in this moment,” Hamilton said. “Follow your heart and do what makes you happy.”

“An education is incomparable,” Shores said. “Nothing is going to change unless you do something about it.”