BW’s Lindsey Adams CSCC Teen of The Week

LIZ ROBERTSON

For The Sun­bury News

Lind­sey Adams leads with a quiet strength. The Big Wal­nut senior admit­ted to being a lit­tle shy, but that does not stop her from tak­ing on lead­er­ship roles in var­i­ous school orga­ni­za­tions such as pres­i­dent of stu­dent coun­cil, Ger­man Club and Leo Club. She is also pres­i­dent of the senior class.

Tak­ing advanced place­ment courses in cal­cu­lus, Ger­man, lit­er­a­ture, gov­ern­ment and pol­i­tics and Amer­i­can his­tory, she also usu­ally has either a meet­ing or a vol­un­teer activ­ity almost every day of the week.

Senior year has so far given Lind­sey “no time to stop and think.”

Yet she embraces her lifestyle that began when she was in the 8th grade and she first applied for stu­dent coun­cil. She said she knew when she started high school that she had to get involved in cer­tain things.

“I put my foot in the pool, got a taste of lead­er­ship, and each year took on more,” she said, even­tu­ally becom­ing pres­i­dent of the var­i­ous groups.

Even with all the other activ­i­ties, Lind­sey said that stu­dent coun­cil is “my thing.”

Really enjoy­ing the group, she sees the activ­ity as the one she has grown the most in. View­ing her­self as shy and an intro­vert, “it pushed me out of my com­fort zone.” Today she sees her­self as a leader.

“Look­ing back, it was the best deci­sion I’ve prob­a­bly made,” she said.

Lind­sey par­tic­i­pated in sports when she was younger, some­thing her par­ents encour­aged her to do, play­ing bas­ket­ball and vol­ley­ball from sixth grade through her fresh­man year.

“I was never really into ath­let­ics. I’m OK, but not great,” Lind­sey said, not­ing she just was not aggres­sive enough.

She par­tic­i­pated in cross coun­try her sopho­more and junior years, where she found the team aspect was a lit­tle different.

“But this year, I’ve decided I’m done with sports. I decided to focus on clubs, get my pri­or­i­ties straight,” she said.

Yet as busy as senior year and her life has kept her, she admits to being ready for some­thing new. She is look­ing at attend­ing either the Uni­ver­sity of Chicago (where she has just been accepted), Ohio State Uni­ver­sity or Welles­ley Col­lege. Chicago is her first choice where the school offers a good eco­nom­ics program.

Aside from want­ing to live in a city, Lind­sey also finds Chicago “so for­ward think­ing. It pushes you to think out­side the box. I like that, to think out­side box. I like to be challenged.”

She likes Welles­ley for the way the school builds up women to suc­ceed and “you gotta love the OSU spirit.”

Lind­sey decided on eco­nom­ics as she has always liked pol­i­tics, “even when I was lit­tle I liked learn­ing about the pres­i­dents,” she said. And with today’s polit­i­cal cli­mate, she thinks the area will be good to enter.

“I also like math,” she said. She added she is not cer­tain what direc­tion she will go but could end up work­ing on someone’s cam­paign or as a reporter for a news agency ana­lyz­ing economics.

“I’m look­ing for­ward to see­ing where it takes me,” she said. “I’m keep­ing my options open and will see where I go.”

Angie Stooks­bury, Eng­lish teacher and stu­dent coun­cil advi­sor, said Lind­sey is “sim­ply amaz­ing! Lind­sey is top notch. When I think of a stu­dent who pushes her­self aca­d­e­m­i­cally, it’s Lind­sey. When I think of a stu­dent who is involved in her school, it’s Lind­sey. When I think of a stu­dent who reaches out to serve her com­mu­nity, it’s Lind­sey. She is truly spe­cial. This is my 20th year of teach­ing, and Lind­sey def­i­nitely stands out as being truly spe­cial. I really can’t begin to say enough about her. Sim­ply amazing!

Geor­gia Craig is Lindsey’s Ger­man teacher.

“Lind­sey is a very ded­i­cated young woman,” Craig said. “While she strives to make the most of her aca­d­e­mic oppor­tu­ni­ties at Big Wal­nut, she has also been active in many aspects of serv­ing her community.”

Craig went on to say that Lind­sey has been very active in the Ger­man pro­gram at Big Walnut.

“She is a mem­ber of Delta Epsilon Phi, the Ger­man Honor Soci­ety, and she is the cur­rent pres­i­dent of the Ger­man Club. She lived in Ger­many for a month dur­ing the sum­mer through the Friend­ship Con­nec­tion and has been active teach­ing Ger­man at local ele­men­taries. It has been a plea­sure to have been able to work with her for the last four years.”

Lind­sey spoke of her Ger­man experience.

“I found myself start­ing to dream in Ger­man,” she said, admit­ting her first week in school there she was over­stim­u­lated with being immersed in German.

She said she would con­sider minor­ing in Ger­man which with eco­nom­ics as a major, could pos­si­bly lead to a posi­tion with the United Nations or in Germany.

But until then, Lindsey’s “big thing is com­mu­nity ser­vice.” Whether it is work­ing on the senior class gift, help­ing with Break­fast with Santa, tutor­ing math or fundrais­ing for the Amer­i­can Heart Asso­ci­a­tion, Lind­sey gives it her all. She even has her own fundraiser for ALS, which her grand­mother died from when she was in ele­men­tary school. Lind­sey has raised $3,000 in the last four years through yard sales and fundrais­ing let­ters for the organization.

There is also the work through her church where she helped rebuild parts of New Orleans this past sum­mer and attended the National Youth Gathering.

Lind­sey offers the fol­low­ing advice to underclassmen.

“Don’t pigeon­hole your­self to be a cer­tain kind of per­son,” she said. “Be open-minded, and take it all in.”

Lind­sey is the daugh­ter of Nadine and Mark Adams of Sunbury.

Posted by Gary Henery on Dec 26 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.