BV’s Penny will focus on helping others

Jaclyn Penny

Story and photo by

LIZ ROBERTSON

Jaclyn Penny sees her­self some­day as a psy­chol­o­gist at a reha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­ter or as a school psy­chol­o­gist — maybe even at Buck­eye Valley.

But for now senior year is in full swing, and as Jaclyn said it’s excit­ing, but “it goes by fast. Def­i­nitely real­ity set­ting in.”

Espe­cially now that the Buck­eye Val­ley senior decided over the hol­i­day break to attend Wit­ten­berg Uni­ver­sity. She wanted a smaller col­lege where she can inter­act more with teachers.

She also is pleased that Wit­ten­berg, while a Lutheran school, offers a Catholic mass, so she can stay in her faith.

Jaclyn plans to focus on psy­chol­ogy in her stud­ies there.

“I’ve always been inter­ested in how the mind works. I like talk­ing to and help­ing peo­ple,” she said, not­ing that her friends come to her for advice.

She admit­ted that as recently as fresh­man year, she con­sid­ered a career as a lawyer.

“But I took a busi­ness class and it was awful,” she said. “I’m a peo­ple person.”

BV Eng­lish teacher Zac Lan­de­feld said, “Jackie is a great young lady… very sin­cere, dili­gent, and will­ing to learn and improve from feed­back. She’ll have a very pos­i­tive impact in what­ever line of work she pur­sues, not only because she is bright, but more impor­tantly, because she knows how to inter­act with peo­ple in a way that leaves them feel­ing bet­ter for hav­ing been around her.”

But for now, Jacyln said, school is both crazy and sad. Crazy while busy, sad in that it will be end­ing soon.

“But then I’m ready to expand, meet new peo­ple,” she said.

Jaclyn is tak­ing French 4 this year and has had Deb­o­rah Fowler for French since she was a freshman.

“She is a con­sci­en­tious stu­dent and takes great care with her work,” said Fowler. “Suc­ceed­ing in French 4 demands moti­va­tion and self-direction, and Jackie shines in this respect. She has achieved a high level of speak­ing French as well as under­stand­ing spo­ken French.

“Jackie’s lead­er­ship abil­ity and desire to serve are evi­dent every­where in our school. She works hard on projects, is depend­able, and is a pos­i­tive influ­ence on her peers. She is kind to oth­ers, while encour­ag­ing them to do their best. Her enthu­si­asm is con­ta­gious. Most impor­tantly, Jackie is a per­son of high integrity, whose behav­ior and atti­tude are exemplary.”

Jaclyn is busy in numer­ous school activ­i­ties. She is senior class pres­i­dent and involved in Teen Insti­tute, stu­dent coun­cil, the Fel­low­ship of Chris­t­ian Ath­letes, National Honor Soci­ety and in var­sity soccer.

Busi­ness teacher and NHS advi­sor Chris Pileski has had Jaclyn in two classes.

“I must say, she’s prob­a­bly one of the most con­sci­en­tious stu­dents I’ve ever taught. I’ve seen her put her peers’ con­cerns before her own numer­ous times,” Pileski said. “I’ve also had the priv­i­lege to men­tor Jaclyn in our National Honor Soci­ety chap­ter here at BV. So far this year, Jaclyn and her chap­ter have raised over $1,000 for char­i­ties. This past quar­ter Jackie par­tic­i­pated in the Peo­ple In Need food pack­ing day, once again, think­ing of her fel­low man, before herself.”

“Jackie is a tremen­dous young lady. As a stu­dent in my classes of health and phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion, she has always worked extremely hard,” said teacher Charles Harle. “She is well respected by her class­mates. As the FCS (Fel­low­ship of Chris­t­ian Stu­dents) advi­sor, I have had the priv­i­lege to wit­ness her com­pas­sion­ate, car­ing, friendly per­son­al­ity. Jackie “mod­els” her faith in all that she does. Jackie is a leader in school and will be very suc­cess­ful in what­ever she does in the future.”

Jaclyn has loved play­ing soc­cer and does not think she can stop so looks for­ward to play­ing either club or intra­mural in col­lege. Dur­ing her last year play­ing the sport at Buck­eye Val­ley the team had a win­ning sea­son with the “best year ever in the his­tory of the school.”

Play­ing soc­cer was a stress reliever for Jaclyn.

“I’ve been play­ing with the same girls since sec­ond grade, some since mid­dle school,” she said.

Senior night at soc­cer was hard she said as she went through an array of emo­tions. She said it was nice as she was able to go home after school, but sad to leave her teammates.

“I’m happy and proud of the sea­son,” she said.

Even though soc­cer is over, Jaclyn is still busy as senior class president.

“I remem­ber when I was a lit­tle kid and saw shows talk­ing about being senior class pres­i­dent. I always thought that would be cool, but never thought I would be one,” she said reflect­ing. “It’s not that I feel like I’m the top of every­one, but that I can rep­re­sent them.”

She said the expe­ri­ence has helped make her a leader and given her more confidence.

“It’s helped me to talk to peo­ple more,” she said.

Among her duties as class pres­i­dent, Jaclyn will select the class T-shirt, class announce­ments and give the wel­come speech at graduation.

In other vol­un­teer activ­i­ties, Jaclyn has helped with the com­mu­nity senior break­fast all four years, worked for PIN at the clear­ing­house the last two years, helped with the food pantry at Buck­eye Val­ley East Ele­men­tary, shopped with the sher­iff this year and helped out at the humane society.

There has also been the road clean-ups with Teen Insti­tute and Kick for the Cure with soc­cer as well as sell­ing suck­ers to help another team pur­chase team jer­seys, in addi­tion to numer­ous bake sales for other fundrais­ers, includ­ing one for a neigh­bor whose house burned down.

Then there are her classes which include hon­ors French IV, psy­chol­ogy, advanced place­ment cal­cu­lus, senior Eng­lish, account­ing and hon­ors physics.

Jaclyn is look­ing for­ward to the senior class trip to Cedar Point and going to France with her mother on spring break. Last sum­mer, the French class went but she decided she would rather go with her mom this year.

For the future, Jaclyn has always wanted to go to Africa and is hop­ing to do so through Wittenberg.

“I would like to go and help with AIDS research or help build houses,” she said. “I just some­times feel so self­ish with all Amer­ica has; I just want to help give them the life they should have.”

She added that the Peace Corps is not out­side the realm of future pos­si­bil­i­ties as well.

“Since sopho­more year, I have thought of doing this. My par­ents are happy that I want to do some­thing like this,” she said, adding, “but they are a lit­tle ner­vous, too.”

Yet while hop­ing to get out into the world to help oth­ers, Jaclyn sees her­self even­tu­ally set­tling in Ohio to be close to family.

She offers the fol­low­ing advice to oth­ers about high school.

“Def­i­nitely try every club once. Find one that’s right for you. Meet new peo­ple. Gain new skills,” she said. “Don’t worry about silly things that do not mat­ter. Just relax and enjoy it.”

Jaclyn is the daugh­ter of John and Yvonne Penny of Delaware.

Posted by Liz Robertson on Jan 20 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.