JUNGUK CHOI
Parents: Do Won and Soon Mi Choi
Residence: University Place
GPA: 3.98
About the grad: Choi finds himself at home in the classroom, the community and the water.
As a varsity swimmer and member of Curtis High’s state champion water polo team, he’s found satisfaction out of the spotlight.
“Water polo is not a known sport. We don’t get as much recognition,” he said. “All of the players have this sense of modesty.”
Despite practicing two or more hours a day in the pool, Choi has found time to study. He’s earned nearly perfect grades in a tough course of study, including honors and advanced placement classes, and he’s served as student body vice president.
His interest in a medical career was stoked by the Sunday mornings he spent volunteering at St. Clare Hospital in Lakewood, where he’s racked up more than 100 hours of service.
“It is apparent that he is a courteous, responsible, enthusiastic person who has a commitment and dedication to improving himself as well as helping others,” Curtis counselor Linda Marsh wrote in her nomination.
What’s next: He’ll study biology at Cornell University in New York and plans to pursue a career in dentistry.
SCOTT FUNKHOUSER
Parents: Debra Funkhouser and Rick Funkhouser
Residence: Graham
GPA: 4.0
About the grad: Academic excellence and volunteerism, coupled with a healthy dose of determination, are the hallmarks of Funkhouser’s high school career.
The straight-A student will be valedictorian for the first graduating class at two-year-old Graham-Kapowsin High. He’s also the first All-Star Graduate from the new school.
He’s an enthusiastic volunteer for school and community causes. As the second-youngest member of the Graham Sunrise Lions Club, Funkhouser helped staff a food booth and a dunk-tank booth to raise money. As a Key Club member, he helped set up the Hollywood Nights school dance. He refurbished and painted ornaments for Tacoma’s 100-foot Christmas tree.
He’s excelled in golf, being named the school team’s putting champion his junior year. He works on the school yearbook.
Among the accomplishments he’s proudest of: participating on a three-member team that took third in the country in a National History Day competition. The team’s display, about Radio Free Europe, can be seen at the broadcast service’s headquarters in Prague, Czech Republic.
Peers respect Funkhouser, Graham-Kapowsin counselor Angela Knight wrote: “Scott is an example to all in the way he has chosen to live his life.”
What’s next: He’s headed for the University of Washington to study bioengineering.
MICHELLE HARVEY
Parents: Alan and Rhonda Harvey
Residence: Federal Way
GPA: 4.68 (weighted GPA)
About the grad: Harvey is an outstanding student and mature beyond her years, traits that made her Annie Wright’s first student ever allowed to study abroad. She spent three months studying at the Kyoei Gakuen school in Tokyo, Japan, an experience she called amazing but also one of the hardest things she’s ever done.
She’s got an impressive résumé that includes co-editing the school newspaper, serving as junior class president, theater acting, managing budgets, planning prom and teaching international students. A school administrator called her one of the strongest students in the 121-year history of Annie Wright School.
But it’s her quick thinking and unflappable spirit that helped her survive “Pirate Camp,” an Annie Wright School summer program that she helped run last summer. The five-day camp for prekindergarteners through first-graders was supposed to be limited to 16 students, but 34 were registered the first day.
“The kids were everywhere,” Harvey said. “It was a bunch of small boys and three girls. Two boys had binkies.”
An Annie Wright administrator said Harvey simply smiled and put together Plan B. “The parents, many quite skeptical, were soon begging her to run the camp again this summer,” the administrator said.
What’s next: She’ll take the first semester off to work, then start at Middlebury College in Vermont in February to study Japanese.
ALLY HOCKMAN
Parents: Teresa and Dave Hockman
Residence: Milton
GPA: 3.98
About the grad: Having participated in theater since the age of 6, Hockman has acted in six productions at Fife High School, including playing Anne in “The Diary of Anne Frank.”
“It’s really fun to be able to be someone you’re not,” said Hockman. “I’m really shy in person. On stage, I’m completely different.”
She’s been directed by her mom, Teresa Hockman, who teaches English and drama at Fife High. And she’s acted alongside her dad, Dave Hockman, in “The Crucible” at the high school. He teaches English and journalism at Columbia Junior High School in Fife.
Ally Hockman has volunteered at the child care center for the women’s shelter of the YWCA of Tacoma-Pierce County. She’s helped feed homeless people in Tacoma as a project of Family, Career and Community Leaders of America. She’s also been state public relations officer for the Future Business Leaders of America.
What’s next: She’ll study at Green River Community College in September. Hockman wants to work in Africa in an AIDS orphanage or with endangered animals.
ANDREW KANGISER
Parents: Joel Kangiser and Therese Larsen
Residence: Tacoma’s South End
GPA: 3.97
About the grad: Campus minister. Senior class president. Captain of the football team.
There are many ways to delineate the academic and extracurricular successes of Kangiser.
But it is his fierce commitment to family, friends and faith that perhaps give the truest glimpse into Kangiser’s character and soul, his teachers say.
“Andy is a young man of incredible virtue and integrity, and he is committed to living out his values and witnessesing to them for the benefit of others,” English teacher Julie Campbell wrote in a nomination letter.
Kangiser led a three-day retreat for juniors with such intensity and preparation that chemistry teacher Kenneth R. Peterson wrote: “Andy was the most effective senior leader of all the retreats that I have observed.” Peterson has participated in 25.
Kangiser’s grasp of chemistry so outdistanced that of his fellow students that Peterson agreed not to use Kangiser’s scores to set the class curve.
His internal drive will guide him, but the job he does for pay will never define him, he believes.
“Material wealth is not a measure of success, so much as your enjoyment or your passion for what you’re doing,” Kangiser said.
What’s next: He’ll study business accounting at Western Washington University. He intends a career as a certified public accountant, perhaps at the corporate level.
KARLO LEONOR
Residence: Federal Way
GPA: 4.0
Parents: Rebecca and Florencio Leonor
About the grad: Among his many activities, Leonor singles out his role representing the Northwest and Hawaii on the State Farm National Youth Advisory Board. Leonor helps select school- and community-based projects to receive $5 million annually in grants nationwide. “It kind of mixes everything I’ve been passionate about in high school,” he said. That includes education, community service and empowering youths to be leaders.
Leonor also helped write a handbook guiding Beamer students on college application procedures. He also wrote and published his family’s genealogy, tracing six generations of immigrant heritage in the Philippines and the United States.
Leonor has won regional and national titles with Todd Beamer’s speech and debate team. He’s also been a volunteer youth minister at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in Federal Way.
What’s next: He’ll study education at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, and eventually teach high school. “I come from a family where education is valued,” Leonor said. “A career in education is a natural progression from that.”
TRENTEN NELSON-RIVERS
Parents: Clark Rivers and Janny Nelson-Rivers
Residence: Kent
GPA: 3.35
About the grad: Nelson-Rivers begins his school day with a commute that would make many adults cringe – a drive from Kent to Charles Wright Academy in University Place. He admits the trip improved some after he got his driver’s license – he used to ride the bus.
Nelson-Rivers has never taken the easy route. As one of the small contingent of African Americans at Charles Wright, he’s worked hard to promote tolerance and acceptance. After attending a regional Diversity Leadership Conference in his junior year, he and other students started the school’s Diversity Corps. He went on to run successfully for senior class president.
“In this role, he achieves what few high school students do: He backs up all the talk with responsibility, action, attention to detail, results,” Kathryn Ryan, associate director of counseling at Charles Wright, wrote in nominating Nelson-Rivers.
Nelson-Rivers’ leadership has extended beyond the school day to the world of Scouting, where he rose to Eagle Scout and became a statewide leader of the Order of the Arrow, Scouting’s honor fraternity. “It gives you an opportunity to experience the real world within a safe and welcoming environment,” he said of the Scouts.
What’s next: He’ll attend Brown University in Rhode Island, where he’ll study biomedical engineering.
ANDREW OSBORN
Parents: Harry Osborn and Nancy Neil
Residence: Northeast Tacoma
GPA: 3.92
About the grad: Osborn is serious about the alto sax – so serious that he started the day at 6:25 a.m., zero hour, for jazz band class. He made the All State Band in 2005, and was the first-place winner for the alto sax at the 2006 Washington State Solo and Ensemble Contest, and the second-place winner in 2005.
But he’s not afraid to have fun with music, too. He showed up at a board meeting at his mom’s work to play “The Pink Panther” theme for a room full of distinguished and rather serious doctors.
And he uses music to help others. In addition to serving as a camp counselor, hospital volunteer, volunteer soccer referee and exhibit volunteer at the Washington State History Museum, Osborn has served for the past two years as a volunteer musician for the Pierce County Emergency Food Network’s Thanksgiving Day dinner.
As much as Osborn loves music, he also loves learning. The chairwoman of the English department at Stadium said Osborn pressed himself to improve his writing, even after he secured a top grade. “Andrew Osborn is a truly wonderful young man,” she wrote. “He is mature beyond his years; focused on positive endeavors, and is kind to all.” The school’s band director said Osborn is a great musician and person. “He is a true leader, both musically and scholastically,” he said.
What’s next: Pacific Lutheran University.
LESLIE ELAINE RAYMOND
Parents: Dr. William and Leslie Raymond
Residence: Puyallup
GPA: 3.8
About the grad: Emerald Ridge counselor Brian Maxfield captures it all when he describes Raymond as “a joy and a true superstar.”
The teen’s bio is packed with honors and activities.
She’s volunteered for the Puyallup School District’s diversity fair, mentored underclassmen at Emerald Ridge and spent more than 100 hours directing and producing the school’s elaborate Martin Luther King Jr. Assembly this year.
She’s pumped up Jaguar sports teams as a varsity cheerleader the past three years, winning recognition from two national cheerleading associations as an all-star.
She’s active in Bible studies and a youth discussion group at the Puyallup Foursquare Church.
The honor roll student, whose schedule includes advanced placement courses, had her pick of eight universities that offered admission.
Yet on top of all her accomplishments, Raymond remains compassionate and genuine, wrote Principal Brian Lowney: “If my daughter were ready to enter high school, Elaine is the young lady I would choose to mentor her. She takes the time to get to know students and shows real care for them.”
What’s next: She’ll attend the University of Washington Business School, majoring in business and Spanish.
JESSICA SNOW
Parents: Darell Lee Snow and Chantelle Jeanette Gibbs
Residence: Tacoma’s East Side
GPA: 4.0
About the grad: Snow loves capturing people “in the moment” with her camera lens, then watching those elements of life “pop out” on paper in the darkroom.
Her photographer’s eye is a skill that might one day help her peer into the minds of people struggling with mental illness. She plans to earn a doctor of psychology degree, work in the field and write books.
Snow’s determination, creativity and persistence will propel her far in her endeavors, Lincoln student body adviser Eleni Hamilton believes.
“Jessica always rises to the challenge and she has repeatedly proven herself to be a young lady of strong character and a lot of determination,” Hamilton wrote in a nomination letter.
She’s recognized as an associated student body leader and a talented athlete who is so focused she once walked into a lake to hit her golf ball out of a hazard, Hamilton said.
Snow volunteered at Good Samaritan Behavioral Health Care; paired her love of movies with her penchant for helping out by taking tickets, working concessions and cleaning the lobby at the Grand Cinema; and she intends to support herself through college, the letter said.
One of her mantras for life, then, is not surprising.
“If you set your mind to it, you can succeed,” Snow said.
What’s next: She’ll attend Western Washington University.
CLINT WIRE
Parents: Al and Laura Wire
Residence: Rainier
GPA: 3.989
About the grad: Wire earned his Eagle Scout award at age 14, made his high school honor roll annually, lettered in four sports and attended religion classes at 6 a.m. daily.
The future Brigham Young University student plans to go to medical school to become an anesthesiologist, but not until after two years as a missionary with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
His self-professed weakness? Falling asleep in class. He’d catch himself nodding off “all the time,” particularly his junior year at Yelm High School, when his schedule included two college-level classes and grueling reading requirements, he said.
For his Eagle Scout project, he organized tree planting and landscaping at a Yelm park. It is one of a number of accomplishments that reflect the determination and planning that are central to his character. “I knew if I tried to do it when I was older, I wouldn’t have time to get it done,” he said.
One of his mentors said he has never met a student better prepared for life after high school. “Clint’s presence is felt by many because of his unselfish desire to be of service. He shows a genuine concern for the quality of life around him,” wrote Myron McClellan, a teacher, coach and church leader.
What’s next: He’ll attend Brigham Young University in Utah, and plans to do missionary work and enter medical school. Wire plans to become an anesthesiologist.
CATHERINE ZENDER
Parents: Mark and Susan Zender
Residence: Enumclaw
GPA: 3.993
About the grad: The tiny tube that hangs from Zender’s hip is the only hint she’s anything other than a healthy and happy teenager.
The clear plastic link ties Zender to a pocket-sized insulin pump. Diagnosed at age 12, she is a diabetic who pricks her finger seven or eight times daily to test her blood sugar levels, and adds insulin as needed.
“I’ve kept it under control really well the last few years,” she said.
Her English teacher, Tandy Schafer, described Zender as a role model: an outstanding athlete and honor student who is also a spokeswoman for fellow diabetics. Every summer, Zender volunteers as a counselor at a camp for diabetic children.
Zender’s passion is baseball. Her family life revolves around it. Her father, Mark, is sales manager for a baseball product manufacturer. Her mother, Susan, runs the family’s baseball camp.
For four years at Enumclaw High, Kate was starting varsity softball catcher. As a senior, she was team captain. She also plays year-round with a select club, the Washington LadyHawks, and plans to try out for the team at Seattle University.
Her favorite class was math. She’d like to teach. “It came easy to me, but I know a lot of friends who really struggle with it,” she said.
What’s next: She’ll attend Seattle University and plans a career teaching high school math.
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