Two brothers share one mission
The Nelson brothers, Brian and Stephan. Lisa Stark photos.
If you’re looking for the definition of Brotherly Love, you need look no further than Lennard High School seniors Brian and Stephan Nelson, who share one common mission: to walk down the aisle together on May 29 to accept their diplomas at the 2015 Lennard High School Commencement Ceremony, along with 437 of their fellow classmates.
“He’s going to push me up to the stage, so I don’t run over anyone,” joked Stephan, a special-needs student who is wheelchair-bound, referring to his brother and best friend, Brian, a Longhorn football player who is graduating with academic honors.
“It’s only fair,” said Stephan, who is equipped with a hand-held horn to alert other students when he’s motoring by them. “I walked my brother Brian out on Senior Night [the last Longhorn football night of the year, attended by proud classmates and parents]. Now it’s his turn.”
The Nelson brothers are well known around the Lennard campus in Ruskin, and can often be seen navigating to classes, studying in the library, or just hanging out with friends.
Stephan is popular among his classmates and enjoys his participation in the drama department, recently appearing in Lennard’s production of Peter Pan. He also loves attending all the football games and cheering on his brother Brian.
Head football coach Keith Chattin named Brian as “one of our best overall players and an inspiration to other team members. He’s not only academically gifted, he’s also a great athlete and team leader.”
After graduation, Brian plans to attend the University of West Florida in Pensacola, where he will major in athletic training to prepare for a career in sports medicine. He hopes one day to be involved in training professional athletes. His participation in the Dual Enrollment program at the HCC Southshore Campus has given him a jump on his college courses, earning him Advanced Placement college credit in English, Freshman Math, Science, and Public Speaking.
Coach Chattin described how Brian moved many to tears when he spoke about his brother, Stephan, at the end-of-season football banquet. “His brother didn’t get to experience what he did in athletics, and he said he would give up everything just to give him that chance for a day,” said the coach.
School Athletic Secretary AnneMarie Gunderson was also moved by Brian’s speech. “It was the first time I’d ever heard Brian talk about his brother,” she said, “and it was so emotional and uplifting. He spoke about how life isn’t all about football, it’s about doing your best with what God has given you. When you see someone with a disability, you see their challenges and their victories, and you understand that’s what it’s all about.”
The Nelson family on “Senior Night”: from left, mother Stephanie, Brian, Stephan and father Brian Sr. Photo courtesy of Brian Nelson
The Nelson brothers say they owe a debt of gratitude to their parents for their love and support throughout their high-school careers. Their father, Brian Sr., is currently on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps, and will retire at the end of the year. Their mother, Stephanie, has been dividing her time between parenting and attending college, and very recently earned her degree from Hillsborough Community College – SouthShore.
Right now, the brothers are excited about finishing up their classes at Lennard and attending Senior Class activities.
“I’m really excited about going to the prom,” said Stephan. “We are all going together. Yesterday my brother and I went and tried on our tuxedos together.”
A story of Brotherly Love? You bet.
From East Bay, a Valedictorian of drive, poise and remarkable potential
East Bay High School Class of 2015 Valedictorian Ashley Privette with East Bay Principal Maria Gsell. Privette is graduating at the top of her 492-student senior class. Mitch Traphagen photo
GIBSONTON — If you occasionally feel the need to seek out hope for the future, may we please introduce Ashley Privette. Privette is the East Bay High School Class of 2015 valedictorian. She is graduating a year early, although it could have been two years, and she will attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill next fall to begin studies toward an advanced degree in biomedical engineering.
With such lofty goals, one may think Privette has devoted herself entirely to her studies. While, indeed, she may well have, she has also devoted herself to others — her high-school friends, her soccer teammates, student government, homecoming events and even middle-school students with whom she volunteers as a tutor.
Privette is an impressive, smart, confident and yet humble young woman. She is the future, and she paints a very bright and promising picture for it.
East Bay Principal Maria Gsell has been highly impressed with her, as she is with many of the 2,337 students at East Bay. Privette will be graduating in a class of 492 students on May 28 at 4 p.m. at the Florida State Fairgrounds.
East Bay High School is arguably among the most diverse large high schools in America. But it is also a highly successful school. With immense and growing diversity, however, may also come challenges.
The staff and administration of the school, South County’s oldest high school, has risen to the challenge. The Washington Post recently took note of the school, ranking it in the top nine percent of all high schools in the nation.
It is students like Privette who highlight that success. But dozens of other students, from those with special needs to special talents, deserve accolades for their own success found at East Bay. In the end, however, administrators, teachers and even parents can only do so much. Success at any given endeavor, including high school, comes from the student.
“It comes from within her,” Principal Gsell said. “Ashley, she has an intrinsic thirst for knowledge, success and achievements.”
Such a drive runs in the family. Her brother was the East Bay Class of 2013 valedictorian.
Yet her success didn’t necessarily come easily. She came to East Bay from a small private school of approximately 150 students. From so small an environment, East Bay, with more than 2,000 students, must certainly have felt overwhelming. Yet she quickly blended in. She made friends and found teachers who have mentored and encouraged her during the years.
“I have always been accustomed to a more driven-focused lifestyle,” Privette said. “I am a year younger than everyone else, so, when I was younger, I would always try harder in classes because I skipped a grade. I always thought I had to try harder to catch up.”
She spent four days in second grade before being promoted to third grade. She could likely have skipped another, but her mother was against the idea of her being a 15-year-old high school senior.
Despite coming from a much smaller school, she found her educational home at East Bay.
“It’s definitely the teachers,” Privette said. “I also try to surround myself with people who push themselves and are involved with the school. But the teachers, they will bend over backwards for you.”
“If every student was like Ashley, we would have the easiest job in the world,” Gsell added. “But I alway say that we have 2,337 students and 2,300 do what they need to do, and it’s our job to take those other kids and help them find their way.
“High School is a microcosm of society; we have a very diverse student body here,” she said. “It is so very rewarding as the students walk across the stage — that is my greatest honor, to shake their hands [during the graduation ceremony] and to see their faces and to know … ‘she is going there, he is doing that’. It is the most fulfilling part of my job. We make graduates here.”
And Ashley Privette is graduating at the top of her class. She said she never expected to be the valedictorian. Her principal nodded and smiled, adding that Privette has never worked for the grade, she works for the knowledge.
She has played competitive soccer all of her life, and she credits the sport with providing positive character traits. She had a close friend with Asperger’s syndrome in one program that was threatened due to lack of funds. Ashley worked to raise and organize the funds necessary to keep the program going.
“He has had such an impact on my life,” she said of her friend. “That’s one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had.”
Privette also tutors five middle-school students in math and sciences as well as helping other students study for their SAT exams.
When asked if she plans to slow down for the summer, she smiled.
“I really want to enjoy my last summer here,” she said. “I want to keep tutoring, and I do secretarial work at my grandparents’ engineering company.”
Perhaps just a week or even a day off? Ashley smiled politely again.
“They push us here,” she said of the faculty at East Bay. “They want us to succeed, to get jobs and to know what we are doing after high school.”
“My vision for this school is that I would put my own grandchildren in any teacher’s classroom, through any lunchroom line, to any custodian or to any administrator,” Gsell said.
“I want the best for my grandchildren and I want the best for everyone else’s children, every single one of them, and I expect all of our teachers to provide that,” Gsell said. “We have programs for at-risk students and for Advanced Placement students. We have vocational programs. It is your choice and we are going to help you succeed at the program that is right for you. It’s about the student, it’s not about us.”
For Privette, it’s soon to be about the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In mid-August, she’ll be a college freshman with her sights set on what may well be multiple degrees, no doubt culminating in a doctorate.
She’ll be younger than most of her freshman class but she doesn’t plan to tell anyone that. She said she is going to miss the warm atmosphere she found at East Bay but is excited, and perhaps a little nervous, about gaining new knowledge, both in class and out, and of reaching toward her goals.
Privette’s sights are set on biomedical engineering. If the past is any indication; if her polite, modest, comfortable and mature demeanor are indications, her pace toward that goal is likely to be a rapid one. And for that we should all be grateful.
Ashley Privette is a young woman who will make things happen. She will find ways to help that will likely reach far beyond her already impressive accomplishments.
Graduation at East Bay High School in Gibsonton will be held on May 28. Nearly 500 seniors from the 2,337-student school will receive their diplomas that day. Mitch Traphagen photo.
Riverview’s Alondra Soto scores highest GPA
in school history
Alondra Soto, pictured with her brothers Alejandro Belilla, left, and Christopher Soto, is graduating with the highest grade point average in school history but is still trying to get enough funds together to realize her dream of higher education.
If there’s one person in Hillsborough County who deserves to attend college, it’s Alondra Soto, but the young lady with the highest grade point average (GPA) in Riverview High School history is still trying to pull together the money to achieve her dream of attending the University of South Florida.
Soto just might be the valedictorian of valedictorians at Riverview High School. She not only has the leading GPA among graduating seniors — no mean feat in a class of 525 — she leaves Riverview with the highest GPA of any senior in the school’s history. And by no small margin.
No student had ever broken the 7.0 barrier when it comes to GPA since Riverview opened in 1998. Soto didn’t just surpass that record; she crushed it with a grade point average of 7.37.
But you would never know this young lady walks around with the world in the palm of her hand and, apparently, knowledge of most of it in her head. Unassuming, quiet, polite and quick to laughter, Soto, whose academic excellence was achieved without any special advantages or the aid of expensive after-school tutors, said her achievements come down to one thing: focus.
“Don’t worry about things that are not going to matter,” she said.”Just stay focused. Sometimes you can get caught up in high-school drama and all that stuff, but at the end of the day, it’s not what matters,” said Soto, who not only works a part-time job to help her single mom pay the bills but also helps raise her three siblings. “Staying focused is the biggest thing because it is really easy to lose that focus.”
“Alondra is just a great student. She is a leader who leads by example but is also very personable and well-liked by her classmates,” said Principal Danielle Shotwell. “She has a great sense of humor that goes along with her intelligence that makes her very appealing.”
Soto’s mom, Cecilia, has always known there was something special about her daughter.
She said, “Even when she was a baby, she would take those games where you had to put the square and circular blocks in the right holes and she would do it with no problem. Even when she was little she was always wanting to do something more advanced,” said Cecilia, who recalls her daughter studying late into the night. “I couldn’t even stay up with her. I am really proud. As a mom, I could not ask for more.”
Soto plans to attend the University of South Florida where she will study chemical engineering. “I really wanted to be a judge at first but I did mock trial at Riverview for three years and by the third year I just didn’t want to go to the practices anymore, and was really dreading the court. But I was pretty good in math and the sciences so I thought ‘maybe chemical engineering is for me?’” Soto said. “Out of all the engineering fields, it is probably the broadest one, so I can do [everything from] petroleum engineering to working in a lab. So it doesn’t close my options.”
Soto, the oldest of five siblings, has three younger brothers and a younger sister. Setting an example for her siblings was another major incentive for her. “They needed someone to look up to. To show them it doesn’t matter what you start with,” she said. “Even when I was young, I had that mentality of wanting to do it for them.”
Soto is not one to sit her brothers and sister down and offer advice. “I lead for them by what I do,” she said.
While she would like to attend USF in the fall, Soto is still trying to raise at least $2,000 a semester for the school. For more information about Soto or to help with her college fund, call 813-482-2026.
The second-oldest high school in South County, Riverview HS opened in 1998. Graduation Day is June 2.
Earl J. Lennard High School names top two
Valedictorian Dominique Montrose (left) and Salutatorian Geldine Ambroise pose with the bronze likeness of the school mascot, the Longhorn. Lisa Stark photos
As the Earl J. Lennard High School prepares for its 2015 graduation ceremony May 29 at 4:30 p.m. at the Florida State Fairgrounds, students and faculty reflect upon the years behind them and their hopes for the future.
Valedictorian Dominique Montrose and Salutatorian Geldine Ambroise met in the Longhorn courtyard to talk fondly about their experiences at Lennard High School, their motivations on their academic achievements, and their plans for college and beyond.
“I was not always a high achieving student,” revealed the class salutatorian, Ambroise. As an immigrant from Haiti, she came to the United States at age five and could barely speak English.
“I was told that I had a verbal deficiency that was a barrier to my learning,” she said, “and look where I stand today.” Ambroise said she hopes that she is an inspiration to other students who come from disadvantaged circumstances. “I want others to know that if I can do it, they can, too,” she said.
Dominique Montrose, Valedictorian
The valedictorian, Montrose, said: “My journey was difficult at times, just maintaining the motivation and determination to achieve. I accumulated the highest grade point average of my class by taking two years’ worth of college credit and seven Advanced Placement courses. It was through the amazing support system of my parents that I was able to continue to push through.”
Both young women display a natural grace and fun-loving attitude along with their serious determination to succeed.
Despite their grueling course of study, they still found time to engage in high-school social life, attending parties and school events and spending time with family and friends. However, everyone around them knew that, at the end of the day, their homework was always done and they were prepared for that test the next day.
Geldine, Ambroise, Salutatorian
The distinction of valedictorian and salutatorian is traditionally based on GPA, or grade point average, and number of credits taken, but consideration may also be given to co-curricular and extracurricular activities. Montrose and Ambroise will both have the honor of addressing their graduating class at the commencement ceremony, where they will speak about growth, outlook toward the future and thankfulness.
Earl J. Lennard High School in Ruskin, named after former Hillsborough County Public Schools Superintendent Earl J. Lennard, opened in 2006, mainly to relieve overcrowding at East Bay High School. Mary Freitas is currently the principal.
Earl J. Lennard has been known as a tireless advocate for Hillsborough County schools, openly speaking out for students and teachers even in the face of political pressures. As a proud native of South Hillsborough County, raised on education and agriculture, his Florida roots run deep.
Lennard began his career in 1963 as a fifth-grade teacher at Ruskin Elementary School, then went on to teach at East Bay High School, later becoming the superintendent for Hillsborough County Schools.
In 2003, Lennard was named the Superintendent of the Year for the state of Florida. During his tenure, Hillsborough schools gained nearly 49,000 students, and he oversaw the design, construction and renovation of more than 60 schools.
Thanks to these efforts, double sessions were eliminated and the number of portable classrooms was cut in half. Lennard retired as school superintendent in 2005, after 41 years of distinguished service. His two children, Missy and Jeremy, are still educators in Hillsborough County.
Lennard High School plans to celebrate its 2015 graduates with a number of special senior activities, including the Senior Prom, Legends Awards Ceremony, Senior Send-Off Day, and, of course, the Class of 2015 Graduation Ceremony to be held at the Florida State Fairgrounds.
Both valedictorian Montrose and salutatorian Ambroise are looking forward to graduation, and have very specific plans for their futures. Montrose will attend the University of Florida with a major in Neurobiological Sciences and a minor in Spanish. She said she intends to continue in medical school to become a neurologist.
“I’m fascinated by the disorders of the neurological system, and the biological causes of conditions like Parkinson’s disease and Down syndrome,” Montrose said. She revealed that she has a 10-year-old sister with Down syndrome who has played an important part in her motivation to succeed.
“She looks up to me as her big sister,” Montrose said, “and I’ve always wanted to do whatever I could to help and understand her care and development.”
Ambroise, the salutatorian, said much of her inspiration for academic success came from her father, who has been battling colon cancer. “My dad is my hero, my backbone,” she said. “It gives him hope when he sees my brother and I excelling, and with cancer, it’s all about hope.” She said she plans to follow in her parents’ footsteps, both registered nurses, in becoming a doctor herself.
“I’ve donated over 300 hours of community service in nursing homes, rehab centers and extended-care facilities in preparation for my career,” she said. She plans to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, with the ultimate goal of becoming a pediatrician and working with children. “Nothing will change my mind,” she said, smiling. “I’m pretty dead set on it.”
Lennard High School is the newest of the three featured high schools, opening in 2006. Graduation Day is May 29.
