NEWS LITE : SMALL-TOWN GRADUATE ONE-MAN SHOW AT SCHOOL COMMENCEMENT.

It's lonely at the top. Especially when there's no one at the bottom. Or in the middle.

Jeremy Mock was the top graduate in his class at Kelleys Island School in Ohio. He also was the only graduate for Saturday's commencement - a senior class of one.

Only 172 residents live in this village on a Lake Erie island of the same name, about 10 miles off the coast of Ohio. There's just the one school for first through 12th grades.

Ordinarily, the ceremony is filled out with eighth-graders graduating to the upper grades.

Not this year; there weren't any.

``I don't mind,'' the 18-year-old Mock said Thursday between final exams. ``It's kind of a special event.''

Especially in a small town. Anywhere from 100 to 150 people were expected to attend, said school Principal Charles Hoffman.

``It's sort of a community ceremony, I guess you would say,'' Hoffman said. ``Relatives and friends come, and sometimes even tourists.''

He'll have a career to fall back on

The future King of England has a princely way with a pencil and paper, an art critic says.

Thirteen-year-old Prince William's pencil sketch of a tall English house has been chosen from more than 250 entries to go on display in an exhibit of students' art at Eton College, where he started as a pupil last year.

``There is no doubt that Prince William has a flair for drawing - and if his interest in art continues, his talent will go from strength to strength,'' said The Times' art critic, Dalya Alberge.

Writing in Saturday's edition, Alberge said the picture seemed to have been sketched by someone much older, showing ``both sensitivity and confidence.''

What the outsiders are saying

Folks from outside the San Fernando Valley have suddenly noticed a bill that would give the Valley self-determination on the issue of secession.

In their dispatches from the Valley, here's how the ``foreign'' press has been describing our community:

Chicago Tribune:

The Valley, a creation of barren desert turned citrus groves turned subdivision, may seek to reinvent itself again, this time as a city.

The Valley, like the city, is a collection of ethnic groups that seldom mix and pockets of extreme wealth and abysmal poverty. It is no longer the homogenous place suggested by the stereotypical Valley Girl.

SOURCE: By Karen Brandon

May 19, 1996

The New York Times:

The Valley, 20 miles long, 15 miles wide and relentlessly middle class, is separated from much of the rest of the city by the Santa Monica Mountains.

It is the place whose sprawling suburbs, with their children-filled streets, backyard pools and patio barbecues, did much to shape the look and lifestyle of the rest of postwar Southern California.

And, of course, it is the place to see the blond Val Gal as she hangs in the malls and cruises the drive-ins in daddy's ragtop BMW, her vocabulary seemingly limited to ``Totally awesome!'' and ``Oooh, wow, bummer!''

SOURCE: By B. Drummond Ayres Jr.

May 29, 1996

Associated Press:

Amid the century-end turmoil that's seen the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia break apart, Balkanization is under way in the nation's second-largest city with a move toward secession by the San Fernando Valley, the very symbol of American postwar suburban sprawl. Twenty miles long by 15 miles wide, the expanse of tract homes and strip malls that gave the world ``Valley Girls'' and the phrase ``Gag me with a spoon'' is pressing for independence from Los Angeles.

SOURCE: By Dennis Anderson

May 30, 1996

Los Angeles Times:

(After conducting a derisive ``Name that Valley'' contest)

Twentynine Malls was the winner, though I have a soft spot for McValley, Rancho de los Ranchos and Absolutely Not Sepulveda. The cruelest, by far, was Valle de Nada.

Valley of Nothing? The nerve! Twentynine Malls, after all would still be one of the nation's largest cities. There is a there here. Remember, the San Fernando Valley, by any name, would still be the birthplace of Proposition 13, the Ft. Sumter of the great national tax revolt. It would still be the Home of the Valley Girl. And Twentynine Malls would remain the capital of the adult video industry. Goodness knows what the city seal would look like.

SOURCE: By Scott Harris

Feb. 1, 1996

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Photo: no caption (San Fernando Valley)