The struggle of balancing school, extracurricular activities, a social life and a job produce a challenging task; however, for senior Thomas Moore he managed to juggle all of the aforementioned items and maintained a 3.98 GPA.
“[My biggest motivator was] I felt like getting bad grades would make me not worthy,” Moore said. “My goal was never to keep a 4.0, I just hated anything but A’s.”
Moore’s only B came from AP Calculus BC; he was upset about the non-A, but not discouraged.
“After getting a B I was kind of upset that I would not be a valedictorian, but not that upset because I did not know I was eligible until this year,” Moore said.
While achieving the salutatorian title, Moore swam on the swim team and played water polo, producing some of Moore’s accolades.
“My greatest achievement, despite being salutatorian, was going to states for the first time in water polo,” Moore said. “This year we made it to the state championship for the first time in Boone history and it feels so good to say we were good enough to make history for the school.”
Sports played a significant role in Moore’s life, from determining what he did in his spare time to producing some of his fondest memories.
“My fondest memory was my junior year season of water polo,” Moore said. “I switched from lacrosse to water polo my junior year and I got a whole new family and a whole new group of friends.”
Throughout high school, Moore participated in fishing club and most enjoyed English IV with Cindy Hutsell due to her humorous personality.
After high school, Moore plans to continue his education at the University of Central Florida where he will explore an engineering major.
“I want to go into engineering because I love math and I am good at it,” Moore said. “Also my brother is an engineer.”