As smiling men and women in blue graduation gowns entered the hotel ballroom and took their seats, Angela Myles eyed the chair that would not be filled.
The chair would be occupied by a neatly folded cap and gown instead of by her son, 20-year-old Clarence Bourne.
Myles, sitting at the front table with her two daughters, couldn't stop staring.
"Why can't my son be there too?" she kept wondering, her eyes occasionally filling with tears.
Bourne, the youngest and only boy in a family with three girls, was killed in Exposition Park five days earlier, gunned down as he walked home from his girlfriend's house. Family members said he wanted to get home early that night for a job interview in the morning.
The last 10 months had been transformative for Bourne, who had graduated from Manual Arts High School in 2011 without much of a plan. Longing for a life outside of South Los Angeles, he signed up for Venice YouthBuild, a program that offers construction jobs, education and leadership opportunities to young men and women, most of them from high-crime neighborhoods.
From the beginning, Bourne, who his classmates said resembled Kanye West, stood out because of his self-awareness. He was raised by Myles, a senior cook at the L.A. County Twin Towers Correctional Facility, who kept a close eye on her four children.
She always told them that even though they lived in "the 'hood," they didn't need to become involved in gangs. Bourne talked about how strong he thought his mother was, said Kevin Michini, Bourne's case manager.
"Those values kind of got instilled in Clarence," Michini said.
Through the program, the quiet Bourne became somewhat of a leader by example, students said.
"The term they use is called 'positive transformation,' and I can see myself transforming into a more positive social person," he wrote in an autobiographical essay.
In a recent poem, he described growing up in South L.A.:
If you wear my eyes, you see traffic stacked like blocks
Cops cruising by like clouds in the sky
You see puddles of trash as if the rain was garbage
Neighborhood drunks posted on the corner like fire hydrants
And you see kids running around like blind mice looking for cheese
To escape this, Bourne woke at 5:15 a.m. on weekdays to catch the bus or Metro to get to Venice by 7:30 a.m. Sometimes, he'd offer others in the program a place to stay, or he'd make the trek to Venice with a friend.
There were days, said his friend, Eric Elliott, when the participants felt unmotivated. Depending on the project, Bourne would keep working — whether it was in construction or gardening or a classroom activity.
"He was like a lead-by-example type of person," Elliot, 22, said.
In the days before graduation, Bourne was interviewing for jobs. He was scheduled to take an electrician test three days before his death.
At the beginning of the graduation ceremonies, Michini stepped to the podium to present Bourne's awards.
"As you heard, he fell victim to the streets of Los Angeles this past Sunday," Michini said.
Bourne received more awards — in construction, community service, leadership and career development — than any other graduate.
Myles and her daughters were called up to the stage to accept the honors. Myles was visibly moved as she stepped to the microphone.
"I am so proud of my son, OK? And I'm glad all you guys got a chance to know him. Thank you very much."
Amid the talk of futures and possibilities, Myles kept thinking of all that her son accomplished in the program. She didn't know he was learning so much about himself.
"I just would like to know what he could have accomplished."
nicole.santacruz@latimes.com
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