Smart seniors

COEUR d’ALENE — As the Coeur d’Alene School District’s Teacher of the Year for 2020, Margo Swanson said she didn’t have any brilliant advice for high school seniors.

She didn’t share wisdom about career paths.

She didn’t urge them to shoot for the stars.

She figured they'd heard it all before.

Instead, she said they should enjoy life’s simple moments.

“Find a path that enables you to chose happiness over fear and worry,” Swanson said in a video message that was played during the Coeur d’Alene Regional Chamber’s Top Scholars Upbeat Breakfast on Tuesday.

About 100 people attended the hourlong gathering at The Hagadone Event Center at The Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course to recognize and honor the area’s top academic high school seniors.

Honored seniors receiving $1,000 scholarships were:

• Carson Magee, from Coeur d’Alene High School, received the Chamber Education Committee Scholarship, sponsored by Coleman Engineering, J-U-B Engineers, Inc., and Welch-Comer Engineering. Magee will be attending the University of Idaho to study computer science as a platform for the real passion of his life, computer applications, specifically as they relate to diabetes.

• Damon Rosenau, from Lake City High School, received North Idaho Higher Education Consortium’s Chamber Education Committee Scholarship. Rosenau will be attending the University of Idaho to spend his life contributing to the protection of his community as a firefighter.

• Gracie Tucker, from Lake City High School, received Mountain West Bank’s Chamber Education Committee Scholarship. Tucker will be attending Montana State University to study agribusiness or agricultural leadership. Tucker was unable to attend Tuesday's event.

• Luke Johnson, from Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy, received STCU’s Chamber Education Committee Scholarship. Johnson will be attending the University of Idaho to study fire ecology.

•Sarah Wilkey, from Coeur d’Alene High School, received Northwest Specialty Hospital’s Chamber Education Committee Scholarship. Wilkey will be attending Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo., to become a third-generation kindergarten teacher.

Academic Achievement Certificates and goodie bags donated by area businesses will be delivered to 51 honor roll students from local schools. Normally these students attend the breakfast with their family, but because of COVID only the scholarship winners attended.

Derrell Hartwick, president and CEO of the Coeur d’Alene Regional Chamber, said this area has “some of the best people and the brightest young people in this community that I have ever seen.”

“And all of you young people that are here, this is why this community is great because of the people sitting in this room. They went out, they got their degrees, they changed the world and they came back and changed what mattered, which was home," he said.

Lilian Smith, senior at Coeur d’Alene High School, was the keynote speaker. She has multiple scholarship offers and has been admitted to Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Princeton.

In a 10-minute speech she called on business owners and others to “come together to play a part in giving youth in our community more opportunity to develop skills, leadership and valuable relationships.”

She told a story of her peers' frustration at being asked by adults for their opinions, and then having those ideas shot down.

“Instead of talking down to us, please educate us on what it is we just don’t understand,” she said.

Smith, a top CHS runner who has spent her past two summers interning at a melanoma research lab at Johns Hopkins University, said she felt fortunate to live in a community that values life, family and is down to earth.

“This community is full of individuals who genuinely care about each other,” she said.

But work remains to be done to address inequality in public education, Smith said.

She said disparities exist in schools and many students don’t have equal access to resources they need. She said there needs to be equitable education for students, regardless of circumstance or income.

“It breaks my heart to think what will happen to some of these kids without these opportunities,” she said.

Smith urged those at the meeting to help. Ask school officials what is needed. Advocate for smaller classes. Offer to raise money, write great applications or donate.

“These things add up and they make a real difference,” she said.

Swanson, who teaches eighth-grade language arts at Lakes Middle School, spoke of her youngest son, Miles, born a little over a year ago without one ear.

Doctors performed a number of tests on Miles.

“Everything was making us really nervous and worried,” Swanson said.

Fears left unchecked can be debilitating, she said. Anxiety can make it impossible to be present for those who need you. Stress can take away happiness.

“Miles doesn’t really need parents who are overly worried about him, or pretend to have all the answers,” she said.

What he need are parents who show up.

“That’s what we do,” Swanson said.

She and her husband advocated for hearing aids, wrote grants, and once they were able to purchase one, "focused on being present and really finding joy in that simple moments with Miles and his toothy grin and his joyful laugh."

She told the seniors that life will come with unexpected challenges.

“You won’t have all the answers,” she said. “But you show up.”