ZEPHYR – The Zephyr High School Class of 2022 will graduate at 7 p.m. Friday, May 27 at the Zephyr ISD Gymnasium, with valedictorian Grace Williams and salutatorian Emily Miller earning top honors.

Williams, the daughter of Courtney and Jennifer Williams, and Miller, the daughter of Mark Miller, did not start their senior year atop the graduating class which makes the honors even more special.

“Before this year neither one of us were in the spots we are now,” Williams said. “We worked real hard this year to get to be valedictorian and salutatorian.”

Miller added, “We only have seven people graduating in our class so to some it might not feel like that big of an accomplishment, but it’s great. We’ve both worked really hard to get where we are.”

Regarding future plans, Williams said, “I’m going to Texas A&M. Right now my major is set for forensics, but I want to transfer my second year to Central Texas and study aviation and become a pilot. I want to be a commercial airline pilot and maybe eventuality switch over after a few years and fly for private companies. I’ve also thought about taking the forensics aspect I am going to learn my first year and do TSA work and study crashes and things like that.”

As for Miller’s goals and aspirations, she said, “I’m going to attend Tarleton State University. I was planning on majoring in Kiniesology but I’m not quite sure if that’s what I’m going to stick to. I want to be a physical therapist, but the reason I don’t want to switch my major is because I want to do communication studies and get into journalism. Either journalism, or physical therapy, I’m just not for sure yet.”

Reflecting on their time at Zephyr High School, extracurricular activities were among the highlights for both graduates.

Williams said, “ I enjoyed the competing aspect of it all. Going to such a small school, Emily and I are in every single sport, we’re almost in every single academic and extracurricular we can be in. At one point in time we were doing basketball, volleyball, track, cross country, UIL, One-Act Play, FCCLA, and floriculture judging for the first time ever this year. We’re both dual credit students, too, so we’ve been taking college classes”

“All the extra curricular stuff out of school is what I’ll miss the most,” Miller added. “I enjoyed the athletic part of it because I’m really into sports. I do basketball, volleyball, track, and I also did Ag Mechanics and FCCLA.”

As for their favorite teachers, Miller cited Jenna Marwitz and Williams pointed to Michelle Lancaster.

“She’s been a mother figure in my life,” Miller said of Marwitz. “If you need anything she’s there. In her classes we do sewing, we cook, that’s where we do FCCLA and we went to nationals in Nashville last year for it, so there’s been a lot of travel with her. I enjoy the home economics side of it.”

“She’s our main science teacher and she’s helped me a lot with college and preparing for the future,” Williams said of Lancaster. “This year we took forensics in her class and it’s basically the reason why I figured out that I would probably be very interested in maybe pursuing forensics as a career.”