Super students
By Phyllis Moore and Kirsten Ballard
Published in News on April 6, 2015 1:46 PM
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Four students and a counselor were honored recently by the Wayne County School Counselors Association.
The annual awards recognize students who have overcome a variety of obstacles and challenges in their lives to succeed in school.
Wayne County Public Schools counselors at the elementary, middle and high schools nominated students for the distinction. This year, two elementary students and one each from the middle and high school levels were presented awards.
Student recipients included Aliyah Taylor, a Northeast Elementary School first-grader; Noah Willoughby, a second-grader at Rosewood Elementary School; Audree Walters, a seventh-grader at Mount Olive Middle School; and Travis Sauls, a senior at Goldsboro High School.
Named this year's WCPS school counselor of the year was Kerry Loury of Wayne Early/Middle College High School.
Mrs. Loury has been a school counselor since she joined Wayne County Public Schools in 2002. Her first assignment was at Southern Wayne High School.
She began her career in 1984 as a Spanish/French teacher at a high school in Georgia.
As a military spouse, she had the opportunity to teach at various high schools around the country.
She has been at Wayne Early Middle since 2006.
ALIYAH TAYLOR
Northeast Elementary School
Aliyah Taylor, a first-grader at Northeast Elementary School, loves to read.
But the activity did not always come easily.
When academic challenges presented themselves early on, she found a way around them. Teachers say she had a positive attitude and a strong desire to learn.
Her efforts to practice reading and learn vocabulary words produced results -- her reading level increased by a year's worth of growth within the first four months of school.
"She's a smart girl," her teacher, Shari Davis, said.
Ms. Davis nominated Aliyah for the award.
The school's counselor, Becky Sykes, also praised the 7-year-old, calling her an example to others.
"They come to her as a leader. She wants to tell them what she's reading, what sight words she's learned," she said.
"She's come a long way. She's one who doesn't quit. She keeps trying. She always has a smile (and is) the one that always picks others up."
Aliyah, who admitted her favorite subject in school is "playing," said it was "fun" to get an award for doing something she enjoys.
"I like to read books and watch movies and go to 'Let It Go,'" a reference to the popular song from the movie "Frozen." "I like to read about sharks, but I don't like sharks, though. I like Spider-Man because Spider-Man is a good flier.
"I like (Frozen character) Elsa best because she puts ice everywhere."
NOAH WILLOUGHBY
Rosewood Elementary
Noah Willoughby is a reserved, contemplative second-grader at Rosewood Elementary School.
When his teacher, Jessica Rouse, asked students to gather on a carpet in the classroom, "cross-cross applesauce" (school speak for sitting quietly with legs crossed), he was one of the first to take his place on the front row.
But get him talking about super heroes and his own alter-ego comes out.
The avid reader likes drawing animals and reading about them. He also enjoys books about super heroes, he said.
He has a tough time narrowing down his favorites.
"A lot of them," he says, thinking a moment. "Flash and the human torch."
If he had a super power, he admits it would be "to catch on fire, so that I wouldn't get cold."
In actuality, his real-life super power has been to overcome three open heart surgeries and several medical procedures as the result of a heart condition he had since birth.
He hasn't let it slow down his desire to become active and play sports, his favorite being wrestling and football.
Since kindergarten, he has also raised over $2,500 through the school's annual Jump Rope for Heart event to help find a cure for heart conditions.
"I was the top in the school and my class," he said of the fundraiser, revealing a big motivator as only an 8-year-old can -- "because whoever raises the most gets all the prizes."
What stands out at the school, though, is his character.
"Noah's extremely polite and respectful," school counselor Stephanie Cummings said. "He's always treating his peers very kindly.
"He's extremely hardworking and he takes his schoolwork very seriously and so, given the challenges that he's had, I felt like his determination and his perseverance was very inspiring."
Noah, whose father, Jason, is a counselor at Goldsboro High School, and his mother, Sarah, teaches at Rosewood Elementary, took the award in stride, especially when his classmates found out.
"One person said congratulations and the rest of the class clapped," he said.
AUDREE WALTERS
Mount Olive Middle School
Audree Walters, a seventh-grader at Mount Olive Middle School, was diagnosed with a kidney disorder around age 2.
Few at the school knew about her medical situation until earlier this school year, when she required chemotherapy treatments, which resulted in absences from school and a weakened immune system. When she was forced to wear a mask to school to prevent sickness, her own battle became apparent.
"The kids asked me why I was wearing a mask," she said, adding that when she explained, "They understood immediately."
The hardest part, she says now, was trying to catch up on her assignments.
"My parents came to school to get my work," she said. "I had my mom and my dad like set times for when I had to do homework and when I didn't understand things they would help me."
She also missed seeing her teachers, including Tondalayo Clark, seventh-grade language arts teacher.
"You wouldn't know what she's gone through," Ms. Clark said. "She's attentive in class. She may have had days she was not feeling well. Her demeanor never changed."
Counselor Mack Beard called the 12-year-old an "inspiration."
"For all the challenges she's had, she doesn't complain," he said. "She doesn't get down, doesn't have problems with other people. She keeps on going, never lets it get her down."
Turning to Audree, he said, "You're our hero."
When she learned about the counselors award, she said she had mixed emotions.
"It made me happy and kind of terrified because I didn't know if I had to do a speech," she said, adding that it still meant a lot "because I never got anything like that before."
Beard said she did receive another recognition at the school, when she was named student of the month in September.
What keeps her going, she says, is the career she aspires to have one day.
"I want to be a marine biologist. I like marine animals," she said, her favorites being dolphins and turtles. "Sometimes my parents go to like Myrtle Beach to the aquarium, so I ask my mom to take a lot of pictures of the animals."
TRAVIS SAULS
Goldsboro High School
Travis Sauls was scared. He was scared of his neighborhood, he was scared of the increasing pressure to join a gang.
His counselor Sandy Sasser remembers him, four years ago as a freshman, begging to join the fire academy.
"Travis impressed me," she said.
Although he was too young to join the fire academy as a freshman, he began volunteering with the Fire Explorer Post on his own time. His sophomore year, he joined the Goldsboro High School Fire Academy.
"I've seen a lot of things in my life," he said. "Most people end up in the graveyard or in jail. I wanted to do the right thing."
The Goldsboro High School senior credits the academy with changing his mindset on testing, making him a leader and molding him into a more positive person.
The Wayne County School Counselors Association recently recognized Travis' successes with a counselors' award.
Ms. Sasser nominated him. "It's an award for people who have overcome a huge obstacle," she said. "A lot of times it is a physical obstacle, like a sickness, but Travis overcame his circumstances."
He has a part-time job, a car and he pays for his own insurance. She says one of his goals in life is to move his parents out of the neighborhood they are in, and as of last week, the family had begun moving.
To Travis, the recognition came as a surprise.
"I never thought I'd get anything like this," he said.
He is filling out the paperwork to go through EMT training and become a firefighter.
"I can use those skills to help somebody," he said. "I'll know what to do. I won't be scared."