A Few of the Best and the Brightest – 2017

By Fletcher Word
Sojourner’s Truth Editor

Every year we are overwhelmed to hear about the accomplishments of so many youngsters who have finished their senior years in style – working hard in the classroom, on their extracurricular activities, with their community service – and are off to institutions of higher learning.

So we pick out a few high achievers to spotlight and, as usual, we are just amazed by the breadth of their accomplishments. Once again – here are a few of the best and the brightest.

Bakari Neely

Three years of lacrosse at Southview High School became the ticket for a college education for Bakari Neely who was selected, in this his senior year, to the first team Northern Lakes League midfield and honorable mention on the All Region Team.

For his exploits on the field and his academic success as well, Bakari will be entering Notre Dame de Namur, in Belmont, CA, in the fall. Eighty percent of Bakari’s college education will be paid by his athletic scholarship.

At Notre Dame de Namur, a Division II school, Bakari plans to focus on finance and economics. His long term goal is to join his father, Rodney Neely, in his real estate business.

Bakari studied financial management at Southview in preparation for his college studies.

Bakari played lacrosse for three years at Southfield, taking up the game as a sophomore and clearly progressed rapidly.  A game in which few African-American males compete, lacrosse is perhaps the oldest North American team sport. The sport has apparently been played in North America, on the eastern coast, since about 1,100 AD. In fact, only in recent decades has the sport spread beyond the East Coast to the Midwest and West.

Bakari will be breaking all kinds of ground as he takes his talents to California.

Tamunodiyepriye Ngo

Tamunodiyepriye Ngo, a Notre Dame Academy graduate, is off to Northwestern University in the fall, the next step in her goal of becoming a plastic surgeon.  Finishing Notre Dame with a 4.3 GPA and having participated in a host of school and community activities, Diyepriye was accepted into numerous colleges, including well-respected institutions of higher education such as Vanderbilt and Washington University (St. Louis), along with a host of public universities in the Midwest.

Diyepriye has had the opportunity to visit her father’s village of Bakara, Nigeria which was one of the incidents that has influenced her decision to become a plastic surgeon. “A lot of the children have cleft lips,” she says. “Maybe I can help.”

During her college years she will be studying psychology and neuroscience as she prepares for medical school.

Diyepriye clearly took full advantage of her four years in high school at Notre Dame. “I met a lot of people, there were a lot of opportunities and a lot of chances to perform service.” Her service experiences took her to such varied places as Harlan, Kentucky in the Appalachian region and Nicaragua with the sisters of Notre Dame.

And it was not all books for Diyepriye at Notre Dame, she also participated in lacrosse and basketball during her four years at the school.

Keyaunte Jones

Keyaunte Jones has chosen to take his talents – his baseball and academic talents, that is – to Grambling State University in the fall. “Because of the atmosphere, the athletics – it felt like a family there, it could be a second home,” he says of the historically black university.

“Playing baseball in the south optimizes my chances for success in the future and I like the idea of a smaller school with the one-on-one work with professors,” he says of his next four years. The 2017 first-team All Three Rivers Athletic Conference second baseman and 2017 Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year who sported a 3.90 GPA at St. John’s Jesuit High School, plans to major in biology on a pre-med track at Grambling with an eye towards entering the field of sports medicine or orthopedics.
 

Science, in fact, was his favorite subject at St. John’s.

In order to be named the Youth of the Year or the Toledo Boys and Girls Clubs, Keyaunte had to prepare essays, present a speech and be interviewed by the judges. After the Toledo honor, he competed in the statewide competition and was named the Ohio Youth of the Year. It’s on to the Midwest regionals in July then, if he wins, on to the nationals. The ultimate prize is a scholarship in the amount of $100,000.

Keyaunte’s athletic and academic accomplishments helped him earn Youth of the Year honors but his community service also played a huge part in it as well – work with St. Paul’s Community Center, tutoring at Pickett Elementary, Meals on Wheels, etc.

Keypathwa Gibson

Keypathwa Gibson’s track exploits during her years at Start High School are the stuff of legend – this year she won the 100, 200 and 400 meters at the City League championships and anchored her team’s winning 800 relay.  She then won the Division 1 regional 400 meter dash and went on to the State meet to finish her track career.

However brilliant her track career has been, Key’s academic achievements – such as her 3.87 GPA – have brought her almost $300,000 in scholarship offers from a half dozen colleges. Florida Southern University appears to have finished first in this particular competition for the right to enroll th young scholar/track star.
 

In fact, Key’s academic achievements have been so outstanding – she is part of Start’s DECA Program – she could have graduated a year early. She stayed on the additional year in order to participate in track.

At Florida Southern, Key plans to major in marketing, continuing the interest she developed in DECA – a program for students who are interested in careers in marketing, entrepreneurship, finance and management.

What did Key enjoy most about her high school years? “Being ahead,” she replies of her academic achievements and her potentially early finish. She could just as well have been referring to her athletic feats – she was virtually always ahead on the track as well.

Steven Thomas II

As he contemplates his future at The Ohio State University and beyond, Steven Thomas envisions a career in music – either as a performer or as a business executive … or both preferably.  A poet since the age of six, Steven has “expanded [his] horizons” as he has gotten older and has delved into hip hop and rap.

His creativity was well served at Toledo Early College High School (TECHS) where, to his surprise when he entered four years ago, “there was lots of freedom – not a lot of people telling us what to do. They expected us to take a lot of responsibility.”

Now, Steven is off to The Ohio State University to major in business administration with an eye to obtaining the skills necessary to have a career in music production. He will be taking with him 53 college credits that he earned during his Early College High School years.
 

Steven finished TECHS with a 3.79 GPA, clearly excelling in all of his classes. His favorite, however, was English in which he and his classmates were able to not only analyze works of fiction but also ”write our own stories.”

Steven received the Ohio State Morrill scholarship – which will take care of his in-state tuition; the Alpha Phi Alpha Legacy scholarship, an Alpha Kappa Alpha book scholarship, a Girl Friends scholarship and a Walk the Word Church scholarship – in all, over $26,000 in OSU scholarships and nearly $6,000 from community organizations.

Copyright © 2017 by [The Sojourner's Truth]. All rights reserved.
Revised: 08/16/18 14:12:34 -0700.

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