Recently, at St. Louis High School the top ten seniors of 2022 were announced April 11. 

Starting in tenth place are Kayla Vine and Mikenna Borie. Moving on from there, Gracie Shattuck is ninth, Samantha Burt eighth, Dawson Brundage in seventh, Libby Munderloh in sixth, Aaron Bowerman in fifth, Korah Honig in fourth, and Zach Starry in third. Then Kiersten Francisco is the Salutatorian and Alex Baxter is Valedictorian. 

Baxter expressed, “I feel pretty good about getting Valedictorian. It was four years of work so it feels good to come out on top.” Baxter believes what helped him become successful in high school was doing things like the science projects that helped him get out of his comfort zone and made him do things that he wasn’t prepared to do. Those mind puzzling projects helped Baxter prepare and think of the future. The projects pushed him to think and get him used to doing things he wasn’t used to. 

  Francisco stated, “I am so excited to be our Salutatorian! It feels like all the hard work is finally paying off and I am so so happy! I have always had such a big dream to become a doctor after I watched Grey’s Anatomy. I just never let anyone change my mind about this dream, and I worked hard to always push through my struggles to achieve my goals.” She believes her success was from the accountability that her parents and teachers taught her. What also helped Francisco was the fact that she wanted to be at the top and never stopped fighting for her spot there. 

What are these seniors planning doing after high school? Well, valedictorian Alex Baxter will be going off to college, and salutatorian Kiersten Francisco is also planning on attending Central Michigan University. Fransico plans on getting an undergraduate degree in athletic training or exercise science. Once she accomplishes that she plans on applying to go to physician assistant school and hopefully gets her future job as a pediatric physician’s assistant. 

  High school may be complicated and stressful, and sometimes hard to keep going and continue thriving. Baxter said, “The hardest thing for me in high school were those wretched grammar quizzes. I can’t say I was ever confident taking those.” Baxter continued, “The biggest challenge for me academically were my English classes, writing essays, and knowing all the rules of writing, wasn’t exactly my strong suit.” 

However, the struggles aren’t the only thing that has to do with high school. It’s also the people and the things that keep you going. Baxter believes what keeps him going was his friends and teachers who kept his days enjoyable and he had classes that he actually enjoyed. Baxter expressed, “The person that inspired me to do the best that I could was my grandma, she always believed in me and made sure I was going down the right path.” 

Francisco believes that the hardest thing for her in high school was balancing homework and her sports life. Between practice and games, all she wanted to do was sleep, but she had to force herself to do the work before she could sleep.

 It’s sometimes hard to find a good balance for student-athletes. Francisco said, “My biggest struggle in high school was trying to find people that would support me through everything. It was hard for me to learn that I have to do what’s best for me, and my best friends will be there for me. Also, it was hard for me to learn that we go to a small school, so obviously, there is so much drama and everyone wants to be in your business. But at the end of the day, this will all not matter in a couple of years.” Throughout her struggles and her rough patches, she did have some sunshine in her life. She expressed, “I would have to say my parents have pushed me to be the person I am today. They have always been there to support me and help me with the work I needed a little extra help on. They have always held me accountable, and I can’t thank them enough for that.”