Northern salutatorian: Aimee Pack

from Northwest Observer / Onward and Upward 2021

Meet Annie Badger, Northern student body president

Aimee Pack

by PATTI STOKES

Aimee Pack

Throughout high school, Aimee Pack said she wasn’t too focused on her GPA or class rank. “When I got to high school and found out I could take AP classes and get college credit I was like, ‘Okay, I definitely want to take as many as possible…’ I was just ready for the challenge of taking harder classes,” Pack said in a recent interview.

In fact, Pack took so many Advanced Placement (college-level) courses that she graduated with two years’ worth of college credits and academically ranked second in her class.

She said she had her most rigorous course load and some of her most challenging classes in her junior year. She credits three teachers especially – Mrs. Myers (AP Calculus), Dr. Strubringer (AP Chemistry) and Dr. Branyon (AP English) – for making those classes “very interesting and easy.”

She also credits her guidance counselor, Mrs. Deaton, for “helping me throughout high school.”

For Pack, the hardest part about COVID was being “stuck at home all day.”

“I would get my work done, close my computer and feel like, ‘Ugh, I didn’t even leave home all day or interact with others,’” she said.

When she had the option of returning to the classroom for in-person instruction in early March, Pack said she tried it for a few weeks but ended up going back home, where she felt more productive – and, the puppy her family had gotten during quarantine was a great companion.

A lot of her friends didn’t return to the classroom either.

“It was a little sad, because what I had known school to be, it wasn’t like that at all,” she said.

As a freshman, she said she had looked up to the seniors and couldn’t wait to be one herself – “but no one was looking up to us this year because we weren’t even there. I tried to make the most of it, but there were also times when I would get sad.”

One of those times was during volleyball season.

“It was supposed to be such a great season, but we had very few spectators,” said Pack, who was varsity captain of her volleyball team in her junior and senior years. “It was just hard because we didn’t have many fans, and I could only have two family members come to the games.”

Still, earning varsity MVP this year was a bright spot, and she treasures the fun she had playing the sport as well as the friendships with her teammates.

Pack was a member of the National Honor Society, Beta Club, and Spanish Honor Society. In previous years she also enjoyed volunteering with elementary students through the Reading Buddies program, but COVID prevented that this year.

Of the lessons she learned from the challenges surrounding COVID, Pack said, “There were times this year when I thought, ‘This stinks,’ – but that was one of the lessons of all this, to grind through things in the face of adversity. And, when you don’t see your friends or close family members for a while, it makes you value them more.”

This summer she’s helping care for her 10-yearold brother while preparing to head to UNC-Chapel Hill in August. She has a family full of basketball lovers, and she’s looking forward to attending basketball games and other college sporting events.

She hasn’t decided yet what career she’ll pursue, but she’s sure it will be something in the science and/ or medical field.

Pack didn’t get to address her classmates at the graduation ceremony as salutatorians traditionally do, but if she had, here’s something she would have said: “Thank you all for making the last four years unforgettable. The friendships and memories that we formed will last a lifetime. We endured great adversity this past year, but it prepared us all for what lies ahead. I am extremely excited to see the accomplishments our group of students achieves in the upcoming years. For the opportunity to be a part of our amazing Nighthawk community, I am incredibly grateful.”