After years of hard work, the final stretch of Audrey Smith’s high school career has been the hardest. Working diligently throughout her educational career, Audrey has worked her way up to being distinguished as a nationally recognized scholar and the Valedictorian of her class. However, her health has caused her senior year to be altered dramatically.

“I am homebound due to a severe, chronic illness that came on in late October,” Smith said. “My health is slowly improving.”

Smith will still get the recognition she deserves, regardless of her ability to attend school. She has continued with her work, keeping up with her classes from home.

“Fortunately, I was able to keep taking many of my AP classes while homebound, and I am teaching myself the material by reading textbooks and watching taped lectures on SchoolTown,” Smith said. “All of my teachers have been wonderfully accommodating – they email me assignments and help me with difficult concepts.”

Instead of being switched into a homeschooling program, this allows Smith to receive the recognition as the Valedictorian after all of her continued hard work throughout high school.

“All of my teachers have been wonderfully accommodating – they email me assignments and help me with difficult concepts,” Smith said. “I miss being in school and being able to participate in Socratic seminars and class discussions.  But this is the best I can do right now, and I’m so grateful to the Lovejoy administrators and teachers for going out of their way to help me have a successful senior year.”

Although being homebound was not what Smith wanted, in the end it probably helped her reach the top position in class and helped her to evade senioritis.

“Senioritis probably would have hit me if I hadn’t gotten sick, but since I have been homebound for almost five months, I’ve had to keep up my work ethic to be able to learn AP coursework without classroom instruction,” Smith said.

Not only did Audrey compete for the number one spot in the class, she was also awarded a prestigious national award, the National Merit Scholarship.

“Students who get high enough scores on the PSAT are chosen as Semifinalists (the cutoff changes every year), “ Smith said. “Luckily my score was high enough.”

After applying for the scholarship in September, Smith’s health declined, and the announcement of the winners lifted her spirits after being homebound for five months.

“I found out I’d won a Merit Scholarship on March 28,” Smith said. “It was encouraging and exciting, and a validation of the work I had put in to studying for the PSAT and completing the National Merit application. I feel very fortunate to have gotten a scholarship.”

Regardless of her accomplishments and setbacks, Smith continues to be the modest and silently proud scholar who has worked diligently to reach her goals.

“I do feel accomplished being a National Merit Scholar – it’s nice to have validation for hard work,” Smith said.  “But success isn’t measured just by awards, and there are far more accomplished students than me in the senior class who did not win this recognition of their efforts.”

Although she has had a difficult last year, Smith continues to support and give credit to the members of her class, as well as feel accomplished for herself and her hard work.

“What’s important is to be able to feel pride in your work regardless of what external validation you receive,” Smith said. “So I feel fairly accomplished, but not necessarily because of the award.  All seniors – everyone, for that matter – should feel proud of their work in academics, fine arts, sports, or whatever they participate in.”