Discus Award Winner
Winners Gallery
Alexander Van Noord
12th Grade, OK
ATTRIBUTES
Work
In the Oklahoma heat, lifegaurding can be very difficult. As a second year lifeguard, I work for two different companies, the first of which being Lifetime Fitness. I have been working here for roughly four months since the club opened, and I've been loving every minute of it. Apart from lifeguarding in the scorching Oklahoma whether, I teach swim lessons to three to twelve year olds helping them learn to love the water and give them the confidence to swim independently. When I am not working at Lifetime Fitness, I put in hours at my local neighborhood pool, Wedgewood Pool. It's a very underfunded swimming pool, but I lend my time there to improve the condition of the establishment and make it the friendly neighborhood pool I know it can be.
Faith
I attend Cascia Hall Preparatory School, a Catholic-Augustinian high school that emphasizes faith along with education. Cascia Hall offers a weekend retreat once a year for twelfth grade students to reconnect with their faith, but every year, they nominate three eleventh grade students to attend the retreat so they can lead it the following year. I was one of those three students. At first I was hesitant, wondering why I was chosen out of everyone, but I went along anyways, and I don't regret a single moment of it. It was honestly one of the best weekends of my life, and above all, my connection with God is stronger and my religious life was restored. Since then, I underwent Confirmation and accepted the responsibilities as an adult in the Catholic Church.
Academics
For as long as I can remember, I have always been great in school. Learning came natural to me. Now in high school, I have yet to receive a C and have made the silver honor roll every semester, mostly excelling in the maths and sciences. As a junior in high school, I was in a senior level class learning trigonometry and pre-calculus. With a great teacher, I learned so much and enjoyed every minute of it. In my senior year, I will take AP Calculus AB. But math is not the only subject I take delight in. During my junior year, I took AP Chemistry, which has been nicknamed "the hardest class in Cascia Hall," but I earned an A in it. Next year, I will be enrolling in an AP Physics so I can enrich my future and take another step forward towards Petroleum Engineering, my future career.
