Maintaining GPAs north of 4.5 is a feat for any student, but Greenwood Community High School’s top two finishers were able to clear the bar while also remaining active in extracurricular activities and shining in athletics.
Megan Johns, this year’s valedictorian, achieved her 4.629 GPA by taking a plethora of Advanced Placement and dual-credit classes. She is currently enrolled in dual-credit psychology, English and calculus, as well as AP biology and statistics.
Her efforts outside the classroom are varied and ambitious. She is the president of the school’s National Honors Society chapter, Vice President of the Key and Interact clubs, and has been involved in community service at Community Hospital South with the front desk and emergency department throughout her high school career, she said.
Some of her favorite memories from high school involve athletics. Johns is the captain of the girls’ varsity volleyball team and was voted Most Valuable Player sophomore through senior year.
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“The bonds I formed with my teammates were probably the most meaningful ones I formed over four years,” Johns said. “There’s lots of life lessons taught from sports. The biggest thing that developed was my leadership skills. (My favorite memories) were probably senior year as a whole. Senior Night was an outpouring of love and support from all my friends and my parents.”
Johns plans to study professional flight technology at Purdue University’s main campus in West Lafayette. By doing so, she will be on track to pursue a career as a pilot for a major airline, she said.
“A couple of summers ago, I read an article on the pilot shortage the aviation industry is having,” Johns said. “My Circle City Volleyball Club coach was earning her flight rating at Lift Academy through Republic Airlines. At the same time, my brother was in his first year of flight at Southern Illinois University. I got to see both of them going through their programs and it brought (out) my passion for it. I wanted to learn everything I could about it.”
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Bryce Gilbert, the school’s salutatorian, is also headed to Purdue University this fall, carried by his love for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, commonly known as STEM. There, he will study chemistry, in hopes of eventually entering the medicinal research field, he said.
His love for the STEM field comes naturally, but was helped along by excellent teachers, Gilbert said.
“It’s a combination of teachers and realizing it comes naturally to me,” Gilbert said. “Teachers really make a big difference in how much excitement they have when they teach. The harder the classes, the more enjoyable they got.”
He achieved his 4.595 GPA in large part through his enthusiasm for AP classes. He is taking AP English, chemistry, biology and statistics classes. This year, he has also expanded his scientific interest outside the classroom, as he joined the high school’s science academic team.
Along with his dedication to academics is a passion for the soccer team he has been a part of all four years of high school. He originally wanted to be a basketball player, but a love for soccer took over, he said.
“I always played sports since I was little; I wanted to be a NBA player, but I played soccer too,” Gilbert said. “When I got into high school, I liked soccer more than basketball and I started playing. I was not good the first two years, then became decent at it. (My favorite memory), I think, was sophomore or junior year. We had a game that came down to the very end. There was a foul inside the box and our team won the game on a penalty kick in the last five minutes.”
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Name: Megan Johns
School: Greenwood Community High School
Class ranking: Valedictorian
Age: 17
Parents: Bryan and Sherri Johns
College plans: Major in professional flight technology at Purdue University
Career goal: Pilot for a major airline
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