Valedictorian, salutatorian honored: Seniors acknowledged for academic achievement

    As the school year comes to an end, the race for the title of Valedictorian and Salutatorian is close. After years of hard work, Madisyn Ames is named Valedictorian and Brooke Ciampaglio is the Salutatorian for the graduating class of 2019.

    Ames will attend Brown University in the fall, and says that Brown offers a massive amount of freedom to students and that she is most excited to see how she will use this freedom to determine what it is that she is most passionate about. The senior says she is not quite sure what her major will be yet, but that she is leaning towards a double major in the humanities and science, with a focus on subjects like “Philosophy and Health and Human Biology or English and Cognitive Neuroscience.”

Ames adds that she currently plans on finding a career in Forensic Psychology, but being a professor and conducting/publishing research sparks her interest as well.

 Ames believes she got to where she is today because she is “very good at retaining information and picking up patterns, trends and relationships between things.” In addition, the senior adds that she has put a lot of hard work and effort into studying and completing assignments.

      She adds that the qualities that have helped her get to the top of the class are consistently being a hardworking, thorough, insightful and perceptive person. She encourages the students struggling through high school to reach out to teachers and peers for help, and that “no one will judge you for wanting extra assistance.”

    In her academic career, Ames has been involved in many extracurricular activities including National, Math, Science, and French Honors Societies, SGA, and Mock Trial team. She is also a lifeguard outside of school. Ames adds these activities made her “more competent and responsible,” since her involvement  in the activities not only affects her, but they affect others as well. Ames believes that what really made North Harford memorable and meaningful was all of the relationships she has formed with friends and teachers.

    Brooke Ciampaglio will attend the University of Delaware in the fall, and admittedly, she is most excited to be a part of the lacrosse team and the honors college. She also says that she cannot wait for all the connections she will make and the people she will meet. Brooke is majoring in biochemistry and she plans to become a radiologist. The senior commented that ever since she was little she “was someone who was interested in x-rays and I want to be able to read them.” She adds that she is open to going into a different branch but that she is definitely going to medical school.

    Ciampaglio believes communication is a quality that has been a huge help to where she is now. Being able to ask teachers questions has helped clear things up and being able to manage her time was essential. “I am so busy with sports, extracurriculars, and church that I had to plan out my time do to my schoolwork,” said the student-athlete.  

    Ciampaglio adds that being top of her class has benefitted her in many ways, including earning her a “great academic scholarship at Delaware along with my athletic scholarship.” She has also won a few science and math scholarships because of her course load and academic achievement.

     In her high school career, Ciampaglio also played varsity field hockey, basketball and lacrosse and been a member of  National, Math, Science, and Spanish Honor Societies. She is a part of the chemathon team, varsity club and Stars club. Outside of school, Ciampaglio is a member of Student Service Leaders, which is a high school organization at her church, where she does about 3 to 6 hours of service every week, and  during the summer helps the church with events.

She says she “runs small groups and retreats and participates in vacation Bible school for the little kids.”  The senior adds that “Doing all of this has helped me to learn time management skills” and that helping to tutor other students  has helped her review her own work and “understand the subject from a different standpoint.

     Ciampaglio said most people do not know that growing up she had a lot of trouble figuring out what to do or play. She really wanted to be a dancer but also tried horseback riding, gymnastics, soccer, tennis and even figure skating.“I really want to be a figure skater but when the time came for me to take my test to move up to the next level I failed the test, so I guess it wasn’t my destiny to be on the ice,” said the senior.

     Brooke says that what she enjoyed the most about her high school experience was the connections she made with many different types of people. She learned a lot from previous upperclassmen and then took that to help the lowerclassmen below her. She adds that this has helped her grow as a person. She finishes by saying “My friends are honestly my family and the highlight of my high school experience, it wouldn’t of been the same without them.”