Javoi Lee has been an exceptional student throughout his time at Hillcrest high school. He has maintained a 5.5 GPA, is the Vice President of our National Honor Society, and has just made his decision to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign on a full ride scholarship. He has also been successful in athletics as well playing three sports: cross country, bowling, and volleyball. Lee’s impressive resume definitely backs up his title as a top student of Hillcrest High School.

However, there is more to Javoi than just school and academia.

He is an active member in his community as well as in school. Javoi volunteers at the local shelter, as well as helping his teachers with grading other students’ papers and setting up for class. He also helps his fellow students by offering tutoring and extra help when needed. “I’m most happy when I am making a difference in people’s lives.’’ Lee said.

Javoi plans on majoring in Interdisciplinary Health Sciences while at the University of Illinois. “I wanted to help people in many ways, and this major allowed me to do so,’’ said Lee. This major is very advanced and will surely be challenging at first, but Javoi is no stranger to overcoming adversity. He tells me that at the beginning of the semester he wanted to drop his AP Calculus class due to the mental and emotional strain it was putting on him, but he eventually overcame that strain and is now passing with an A in the course.

You may think Javoi was naturally gifted in academics; however, he did struggle with subjects early on in his life, even having to take extra classes to catch up in middle school.  “I studied hard day in and day out to get where I needed to be,’’ Lee said.

Another interesting fact about his success is that he didn’t even have AP classes until his sophomore year, which makes his climb to the top even more jarring because, as many of you might know, AP students GPA is weighted higher than students who take regular courses, meaning he started behind every AP student and still managed to pass all but one.

That on its own is a tremendous accomplishment, and I’m glad I get to shine a light on said accomplishment.

Let us all congratulate Javoi on his many accomplishments.