Discus Award Winner
Christian Ward
12th Grade, SC
ATTRIBUTES
Academics
In addition to maintaining a GPA of 3.7 or higher on a 5.0 GPA scale during all of high school, I have constantly stayed in the top 15% of my class, never dropping below that point. As a senior, I currently rank 45th out of 470, standing in the top 9% of my class. As a high school junior, I ranked 32nd in a class of 582 students on a 4.0 scale with a GPA of 3.35. All these feats have been difficult enough as a student living in a world where the importance of math and science-my two weakest subjects-is greatly emphasized. Furthermore, this has all been accomplished as a student of Sumter High School, the third largest high school in the state of South Carolina. Of one of the largest and arguably the most diverse schools in the state, I have worked hard to rise to the cream of the crop.
Community Service
As a high school student, community service has been one field that I have certainly thrived in. In 2011, I signed up to take Teen LEAD. During the 18-week course, I showed a mastery of traits of a leader by doing community service projects with my classmates. As secretary of the class, I did many school grounds beautification activities. I also sang to seniors in a nursing home and to ailing children of a children's hospital. I also started the Sumter School Student Coalition because I saw that student input wasn't being considered in the decision making of our school district. We are a student group that works hard to have our voices heard by district officials. For this involvement, I was awarded with the Richard W. Riley award for work in civil rights by the SC Education Association.
Government
Government is a field that I have worked hard to excell in. I currently serve in my school's Student Government as a class senator. In my state's student government delegation, I am the vice-chairman of it's largest district. In the 2012 election cycle, I worked on political campaigns. I campaigned for Thomas McElveen who ran for SC Senate District 35 and Alan Cannon, a businessman who ran for a seat on the local school board. I, as founding co-chair of the Sumter School Student Coalition, have spent many days in local school board meetings to offer the opinions and suggestions of our school district's students. My most apparent governmental accomplishment, however, was being a selection as one of South Carolina's two delegates to represent SC at 2013 United States Senate Youth Program.
