Christopher Torres

Christopher Torres, now a senior at El Paso high school, has spent his four years to the fullest and is ready to embark on the next chapter of his life where he will attend college this fall.

Although he will be moving on to other places, he has definitely gotten the full high school experience.  As a member of the track team, cross country team, and National Honor Society, Chris has proved to balance school on both the academic and extracurricular side.

“I did stuff within school, including multiple sports, and being in the NHS, which was a really good experience to work with other people to accomplish great things. It helped establish a sense of camaraderie between different students, and I think that’s really important for learning,” Christopher said.

On top of this and solely on the academic side, Christopher accomplished a lot, if not even more than he had in clubs and sports.

“It was a lot of hard work because in freshman year, I was number 22. Then it was even more work over COVID to stay focused on my grades to end up where I did,” Christopher said.

Now that he’s finished even through a pandemic, Christopher can move on to what’s next in his educational journey.

“My overall plan is to work for NASA and become an engineer, and I’m gonna be attending Vanderbilt University to study aerospace engineering,” Christopher Torres said.

Christopher’s hard work in high school has certainly proved to be worth it in the end as he was not only accepted to Vanderbilt, but he was also granted a scholarship.

“I got a full ride as well as a summer program where I can do my own research, and either study abroad or come up with a project where I’d be doing something,” Christopher said.

Although he will be moving on, Christopher had a lot of fun in his four years at El Paso High, especially with Mr. De La Paz.

“One of the best experiences was taking Mr. De La Paz’s chemistry class, specifically because he went so in depth with the material and made everything physical with experiments. It was just a really enjoyable experience, and he helped introduce me to stem and learning things through more hands-on working rather than just using textbooks,” Christopher said.

Jadin Porter

Jadin Khalid Porter, a proud member of the class of 2022 as well as NHS, choir, and the student council will graduate this year after a full and adventurous four years.

“StuCo has been a very important part of my high school experience. I would also say that NHS has been very helpful. When it comes to the service side of things, I don’t think I’d have nearly as many opportunities as I have gotten through high school if it wasn’t for NHS,” Jadin Porter said.

Not only has Jadin who likes to go by JP been involved in both StuCo and NHS, but he is one of only four seniors that sings for the choir. JP’s great voice has led to a very enjoyable time in the choir, which is supported by his love for singing, especially with the choir’s new director, Mr. Hirsch.

“This year we have our new teacher Mr. Hirsch. I love the man. He’s very bubbly and friendly. Personally I would say that he’s reignited my love for music. His way of teaching the class and letting us navigate our own way through choir has really given everyone a more fun time. Even these past three years before Mr. Hirsch when we had Mr. Thompson, choir has always been a big part of my high school experience,” JP said.

Although JP has had a lot of fun through choir along with other extracurriculars, this fun has been alongside academics throughout his whole high school career.

“I still remember that my freshman rank was like 21 so to now be in the top 10 people is just such a blessing, and I’m so grateful to be here. It wasn’t easy. I’ll say that much. I’ve taken my fair share of AP’s, my fair share of dual credit and OnRamps classes, but it was worth the grind, JP said.

Through all the hard work he’s put in, JP has been granted the opportunity to continue his education at Pomona college to pursue a career in psychology.

“I know that I’m going to be in school for the next four plus years of my life, maybe even past six. I’m planning on majoring in psychology in college. So I know that I’ll have to do some extra work beyond college in gaining everything past my major when it comes to being a psychologist or a therapist. I’m thinking of doing either therapy for children or marriage counseling,” JP said.

Although JP is now a very friendly and open person, he feels he wasn’t always this way. Given the choice, that’s the one thing Jadin would change about his four years.

“Freshman year I was a bit more reserved and shy or just anxious when it came to meeting new friends because I didn’t know anybody coming into El Paso high. After these four years, being more open and just being myself, I’ve been able to garner a great community of fellow Tigers,” Jadin said.

Gabriela Fuentes

Gabriela Fuentes, a member of the tiger pride band playing the clarinet as well as many other organizations like SHS and NHS graduate this year, and although she is moving on from El Paso High, she’s given herself a lot to remember.

Starting with the academic side, Gabi has done a lot of work to get to her final rank, and as always, it certainly wasn’t easy.

“I started working for this GPA and this rank from eighth grade because that’s when I started taking AP classes. It was really stressful, but it was worth it in the end because it’s really rewarding,” Gabriela Fuentes said.

Through her rigorous curriculum in high school, Gabi has earned her place in the University of Texas at Austin. There she will be able to pursue and work towards becoming an architect.

“I decided on UT because their architecture program is one of the top programs in the country, and I got in. It has a less than 10 percent acceptance rate and I’m scared because it’s really intense, but I’m gonna do it,” Gabi said.

Gabi was inspired to become an architect from those both inside and outside of school, and by combining her love for math and art, architecture proved itself to be Gabi’s ideal career.

“I go to an atelier that’s in Sunland Park Mall, and I’ve been going for about eight years and I basically do commissions for him and all that. It’s this guy that’s been painting forever from Italy. I just know how to paint really well and I know how to paint buildings really well. I also know how to do calculus and math really well, so I just put them together, and then I got architecture,” Gabi said.

Although she will be attending the prestigious school of architecture at UT going forward, Gabi has had her fair share of extracurricular memories while at EPHS.

“I was in the marching band for all four years. It was a lot of hard work, but it was fun in the end. I was also an officer in stuco freshman and sophomore year. I did other stuff like SHS, NHS, Key Club, volunteering at Mesita,” Gabi said.

Nearing the end of her high school experience, Gabi took a moment to reflect on anything she would alter.

“I feel like I would change who I got really close to freshman year. I love my groups now. I would like to know them for all four years because I met so many cool people early this year who are seniors, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I wish I knew them freshman year so I could’ve spent all four years with them and not just one,” Gabi said.

Along with this as advice for her future self and others, she said that it’s important to maintain a balance between parts of both free time and time to work.

“Many people think that you either have to be all school or all parties, and they don’t know that there’s a happy little medium between focusing on school but also having fun. You have to hang out with your friends. You have to go to a little party and you have to live life. So even if you really want to be in the top 10%, you should have fun. If you’re really stressed then you’re going to do worse,” Gabi said.

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Nicholas Schaffer

Being a dedicated student since his first day in El Paso High School, Nicholas Schaffer has worked his way up the chain to finally and securely land within El Paso High’s top 10 ranked students. With all his hard work, Nicholas is ready to move into the next chapter of his life and accomplish even more.

After getting accepted to UT where he plans to attend this fall, Nicholas has laid out the blueprint for his future.

“Specifically after graduation, during the summer I hope to get business certifications that will help me at UT Austin because I’m going to be going into finance. I want to be able to get onto campus ready to join business. Over the summer, what I’m really going to be doing is trying to research more into what I want to do in college. I’m also going to be looking into any opportunities I can do to add things to my resume. After college, I hope that I can be doing something in the realm of finance,” Nicholas said.

Although he certainly achieved great things on the academic side of school, Nicholas feels that it’s also important to take part in extracurriculars, something he would’ve done if he had it to do over.

“I think I could have done a little more personally. Participating in more extracurriculars would definitely be a great thing for people to do,” Nicholas said.

Nicholas did take part in quite a few extracurricular activities, though, one of the most notable being National History Day.

“NHD is an awesome opportunity because you can work with your friends and you can learn how to conduct research, work collaboratively to build a project and also if you get passed on the regional level, you can go to Austin, which is what we were able to do,” Nicholas said.

While in Austin, Nicholas and his fellow trip members didn’t just stick to projects, but they went out and created many memories to last a lifetime.

“I just want to go on the record to say that one of my most memorable moments was when on NHD, the trip leaders, I guess you’d call them, took my friends and I to this restaurant called Hula Hut. They made it seem like a really great place but I just couldn’t believe my eyes when the water got to the table and it was green. It looked like they just scooped it up out of the nearby lake that we were just on a duck tour,” Nicholas said.

Overall, though the fun and stressful parts of high school, Nicholas enjoyed his time to the fullest extent and came out with a great rank. Through his resolution, Nicholas worked through school and made the most of the work he did.

“So what I’d say is it’s just about being consistent. You don’t have to be perfect to get into the top 10 by any means. You just have to be consistent with the work you do and you have to just want to learn the material. Really it comes up to the individual and how you’re going to best be able to utilize the time in class to do well on tests and whatnot,” Nicholas said.

Jad Yacoub

Jad Yacoub, the valedictorian of El Paso High school’s class of 2022, has worked extremely hard to get where he is today and at which rank he will graduate. Although there were higher and lower points throughout his valedictorian journey, Jad’s high school experience has proved to be fruitful.

Academically, Jad excelled and took many challenging classes, but more important than this was that he made sure to enjoy all of his classes.

“A lot of times people are pressured to go into student council or the National Honor Society, so one thing I really think really shined throughout my college applications is that I only did things that I liked. That helped me develop a theme of who I was as a person. I never did things that I wasn’t passionate about, which I believe helped me stand out,” Jad Yacoub said.

Along the way, Jad accomplished many important goals, many of which were also on the extracurricular side.

“I co-founded the El Paso high school STEM club, I was president of NHS, we hosted a summer camp for 15 underprivileged students and we secured $4,000 in funding, so that was definitely a learning experience. Additionally, I’m president of the high school double T honor society. That’s a club in collaboration with Texas Tech. It’s just those activities that showed my passion for both technology and medicine that helped me stand out,” Jad said.

Although Jad may make being the valedictorian seem effortless, he has certainly been through his rough patches to get where he ended up.

“I took eight 5.0 classes last year, so eight college classes last year. I’m taking the seven now, I took five when I was a sophomore, and one when I was a freshman, so just taking the most amount of AP classes that I could take definitely showed colleges that I have a lot of academic rigor and that I was willing to put myself in situations where perhaps I wasn’t as confident in the course material as I usually am. This definitely helped me to learn how to overcome those academic obstacles,” Jad said.

For Jad, this ended up being quite the journey between taking as many college classes as possible and maintaining the highest grade in them that he could.  Though this was a challenge, it has certainly proved to be worth its weight as he will be attending Harvard this fall.

“I’m going to attend Harvard in the fall, and I’m in between going to medical school and going into computer science. That’s where I’ll have two years to make my choice. I’ll either choose to do my master’s in computer science, or I’ll choose to do my four years and then go to medical school,” Jad said.

With such a bright future ahead of him, it’s important to remember the memories he made in high school, most of which were great feats of confidence and genius.

“During the 2020 presidential election, EPISD had a mock election across the district, and unfortunately due to some circumstances, IT hadn’t secured the website correctly. Because of this, a couple of my friends and I decided to go ahead and use a bot to autofill votes and we got the Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins to absolutely destroy Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, winning the election with a landslide victory of 43 million votes. Unfortunately, the district was so stressed they had to recall the election. That was a moment that stuck out to me,” Jad said.

This notable moment was among many others, another which of these moments of equal significance and humor is listed below.

“It was the end of the second nine weeks. This is senior year, the last day before finals, and Mrs. Renteria had given me a B, unfortunately, on one of my tests, and I was really mad. I went to the parking lot and all I was trying to do was get to Pho Tre Bien, and then my friend Nick enticed me to speed and I accidentally forgot to press the brake, and I crashed into my teacher Mrs. Renteria’s car on accident, allegedly. She found out that I crashed into her car while she was driving it. And then what happened was, she may have thought that I was upset because she had given me a low grade. But in reality, it was just a complete misunderstanding and a complete accident. And that day I went to Pho Tre Bien on the recommendation of Susie Moreno. Unfortunately, I got these meatballs that were riddled with onions and they didn’t taste very good at all. The texture was gooey and gummy, and they were rubbery, and you could bounce them and have them jump back up and gain some potential energy. Realistically, it was the worst day of my high school career but I learned to enjoy it, because now I know I’ll never have meatballs as bad as that again. Also, everyone tried to report me when I crashed into Mrs. Renteria’s car to the parking account, but I ran it, so I was able to use my quid pro quo,” Jad said.

Through all these memories, though, El Paso High has become a place that Jad will miss going forward, as fun and entertaining as his future will be.

“It’s going to be a bittersweet moment to graduate from El Paso High, an institution with a lot of history. I think overall, when I’m reminiscing about these past few years, I don’t remember the classes and the stressful parts of my high school career as much as I remember the funny memories. Learn to take a step back and laugh at your mistakes and failures and never take yourself too seriously, because that’s how you make high school fun,” Jad said.

Kalista Fong

Kalista Fong, the vice president of El Paso High’s student council and a member of numerous extracurricular activities doesn’t just excel at being an extracurricularly involved student, but she is a stellar student on the academic side as well. Although her four years are coming to an end, she’s made the most of her time as a tiger.

Starting at her freshman year and going forward, Kalista has always been involved in the school, whether that was through clubs like High Q or organizations like the student council and journalism.

“From the very beginning, I wanted to try everything. Freshman year, I was in math club, High Q, and then I quit High Q freshman year because I was the only underclassman, and then I started it again sophomore year. I quit math club and I got really involved in Student Council and then I joined journalism. I got really into yearbook, and I’ve been doing photography since I was younger. The biggest thing that really helped me was trying everything and finding out what I really liked and really getting involved,” Kalista Fong said.

Not only has Kalista been a part of these clubs, but she has also helped them accomplish great things, like mock trial.

“I did mock trial and I was our team captain this year. I went to state two times. I was recognized as the lead attorney in the city and I got recognized by the DA’s office. Being part of mock trial taught me how to speak in front of large groups of people and it taught me how to argue for my point,” Kalista said.

On the extracurricular side, Kalista is one of the most involved students, but she has still managed to make just as much time for academics. With this time in consideration she has bettered herself and has become a true scholar.

“I have a more unique way to get there because I came from out of district, I came from SISD. So when I transferred in, everyone already had AP Spanish four. So when I started, I think I was 60th in our class or something like that. Every single year, I just had to jump ahead and I really had to push myself because of the fact that I didn’t have those classes. Sophomore year, I was already taking six college level courses. So that’s On Ramps, AP, and dual credit courses combined,” Kalista said.

This “jumping ahead” and constant academic determination as well as hard work has proved to be very helpful for Kalista.  Now that she’s moving on to college, Kalista’s hard work is showing its worth.

“I’m going to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland for computer science. I got a full ride scholarship, so they’re covering my tuition, room and board. I’m also going to get their version of a minor in education, because I want to go on and work for a company like Khan Academy and start building programs that are really focused around education in technology,” Kalista said.

Although she has worked through her four years and ended up in a position of great advantage, Kalista does have some things that she would change about her high school experience.

“COVID. I mean, in high school, you’re gonna have a lot of “regrets”, but they don’t really matter in the end when you realize it. Now as a senior I look back and I’m like, ‘Oh, I wish I did this or that’ but we all graduate, we all get the same moment. We all walk down the same steps. If anything, I wish I didn’t put as much stress or pressure on myself some days. Because sometimes I think I worked a little bit too hard for a title that’s not going to matter next year,” Kalista said.

In totality, looking back at high school with experience now, Kalista has one piece of advice of great merit for anyone willing to listen.

“Make the most of it. Everyone says, ‘The four years go by so fast,’ but they do. You don’t realize it until you blink and you’re there. I remember walking in freshman year and not knowing anybody. I spent my first two weeks eating lunch with Mr. Lang because he was the only person I knew. It was him and Mr. Reese, but then Mr. Reese’s class was scary because there were always a bunch of upperclassmen in there. So I don’t know, I think about that and that feels like it was just yesterday, and now we’re here. I’m excited for the new chapter in my life, but I definitely do appreciate and I’m very thankful for all the memories I made in high school and I’m gonna miss them,” Kalista said.

Jackson Hayes

Jackson Hayes, the senior class president and a member of the basketball team, has led a successful four years in everything he took part in.  With skills in athletics, academics, and student organizations, Jackson has already done so much before even embarking on his college journey.

Speaking of his extracurricular activities, Jackson has been a part of almost everything there is to imagine, especially from the leadership aspect.

“I’ve been in Student Council since freshman year. I played basketball and track all four years. Obviously the NHS, some different clubs. I’ve been kind of involved in everything. I think it really helped me because instead of just focusing on one thing, I made myself well rounded because I did a little bit of everything. So, from there, I got a lot of leadership opportunities and learned how to lead a group and now I’m senior class president. I think I’ve used the skills I’ve been working on for three years to finally accomplish all the ideas I’ve always had,” Jackson Hayes said.

Although Jackson devotes much of his time to extracurricular activities and his leadership duties, he still has remained academically focused, continuing to create a better future for himself.

“It gives me a lot of pride to know I’m in the top 10 people, because I know how hard I’ve work and how many days I could have easily just gone out with my friends who don’t like that and instead I chose to study or do my homework or just do things to better my grades instead. I think the lowest grade I got in all of high school was like a 94,” Jackson said.

After four years at El Paso High, Jackson has had the pleasure of being taught by many different people. It’s always hard to pick favorites, but Jackson did favor a few teachers above the rest.

“I’d say my favorite overall teacher would probably be Mr. De La Paz but it’s pretty close between him, Mrs. Hernandez, and Mr. Winter. Not only is Mr. De La Paz a great teacher and he taught me so much in two years, but he’s just a great person, too. Whenever I would have trouble or when I just needed help he was always someone to talk to. When they cover the teaching basis and the personal basis and they speak to you as an individual, I think that’s amazing,” Jackson said.

Jackson’s hard work has proved to be worth the investment in his time as he has been accepted, with scholarship, to the University of Arizona. Moving forward, this will continue to help Jackson’s future beyond college in what he decides to pursue.

“I’m going to the University of Arizona, and then afterwards if I get a good enough job offer at one of the big four accounting firms I plan on taking that and if not, then I’m going to stay and go to law school. I got $35,000 a year, which totals to almost a full ride,” Jackson said.

To close the curtains on El Paso High, Jackson admits how much he appreciated going to high school at EPHS.

“I’m so glad that not only I accomplished what I accomplished, but I accomplished it at La High. I know that being at this school helped me so much. I mean, there’s no other schools with teachers like we have here that care about you as a person and will actually strive to make you better for college and further on. I know that I’m just so grateful for that and without this opportunity, I would have never been able to accomplish half of what I have,” Jackson said.

Micaela Ihorn

Senior Micaela Ihorn is attending the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor starting in the fall where she will be double majoring in physics and math. After college she hopes to go on to get a Phd in astrophysics.

“I first heard about the University of Michigan through my dad because he went there. And then after I started looking into schools with physics programs, it had a really high ranking in terms of education just overall and then, after visiting, I realized it was a beautiful campus. And then I ended up getting into a residence program for girls in STEM so that ultimately swayed my decision,” Michael said.

During her time at El Paso High, Michaela participated in many extracurricular activities. She was a part of the National Honor Society, Spanish Honor Society, High Q, and Orchestra. She was also a part of El Paso High’s track and cross country team. 

“I really liked being a part of all the different things that El Paso High had to offer. But it was also fun attending events like the football games and dance and orchestra performances too,” Michaela said. 

While still making time for extracurriculars, Michaela worked hard to keep her grades and GPA up.

“It’s honestly rewarding being one of the top 10, because I would spend hours every night doing homework making sure I got the highest scores I possibly could. So it feels good to know that I achieved something with that hard work,” Michaela said.

Michaela’s graduation will be a bittersweet moment as she has made many memories and friends in the past four years.

“El Paso has a diverse community, and overall, just has a very welcoming feeling to it. So it’s been a great place to grow up and figure out what I want to do with my life,” Michaela said.

Valentina Vazquez

Senior Valentina Vazquez will be studying pre-med at the University of Arizona at the Honors College on a scholarship.  

“As of right now I’m planning on being an optometrist or a radiologist. So I chose U of A partly because of the scholarship and because they have a good medical school. Plus it’s far enough away from home that I can still feel like I have my independence while still being close enough that I can come home if I want to. Plus I’m only having to pay like 12,000 dollars a year in tuition because of my scholarship,” Valentina said. 

As a student of El Paso High, she was given many opportunities and was involved in multiple clubs. 

“I was pretty involved in the High Q team here, which is really fun. It’s like competitive trivia and we do that throughout like both semesters. And then in the summers I participated in doing research at labs. It was a microbiology lab and they worked on things like the dengue virus and how they would replicate humans. I also was involved in some sports freshman and sophomore year like tennis, and the honor societies,” Valentina said.

While Valentina took time to participate in extracurriculars, some of her most notable memories are with her friends she made along the way. 

“One of my friends and I did NHC which is short for National History Day. And we actually started the project a week before it was due. But our project somehow made it to Nationals. And it’s been fun to go out there and talk about different things in the club. It just made it that much more memorable to get to do everything in high school with my friends and stuff,” Valentina said.

Being one of the top 10 students is a tiring feat to accomplish and Valentina took it in stride in order to  accomplish her goals for high school.  

“I’m really proud of this. I think it was a lot of work but it’s for sure like, like super tiring at the end because there’s a bunch of  stuff for like graduation and you still have to maintain your grades for college and stuff like that. So I’m really happy about it but it can get stressful. But if you do your best, just trying the best you can, then i think it’s worth it,” Valentina said. 

Hanna Rodriguez

Senior Hannah Rodriguez will be attending medical school at Northwestern University to later become a pediatric surgeon. 

“I decided to go to Northwestern because I really liked the opportunities that they gave me and they have a lot of good programs for pre med students especially. And then they gave me a good financial aid package that really supported everything,” Hannah said.

As her time at El Paso High is coming to an end, Hannah is looking back on her favorite memories.

“I was a part of Acadec this year and I think one of my favorite experiences was when we had a competition coming up so  we have practices until six. So sometimes we would just hang out a little bit after and I remember one time we went out to the track, and we were running because one of my friends needed to do something for an academy. So one of my friends started sprinting the 100 meter and at 50 meters he fell and rolled. We got a video of it and his whole back was scraped and everything. We also used to just hang out in the parking lot until like seven o’clock in the afternoon, and just talk and do that sort of stuff. So it was fun to just get to have these experiences with my friends,” Hannah said.

Not only was she a member of Acadec, Hannah was an active participant in extracurriculars throughout highschool. 

“I played basketball for two years for the school until I was injured and I did track this year and theater. I was also in the honor societies like NHS and then I did academic and High Q and I did Science for UIL,” Hanna said. 

Hannah spoke about how El Paso High helped her and gave her a place to be herself as she became an adult. 

“I think everything and all the experiences I went through really helped make me who I am. And I’d much rather go through that in high school than have to do that as an adult who’s living on my own,” Hannah said. 

Simran Haribhai

Senior Simran Haribhai will be attending Rice University as a political science major this coming August. After receiving her degree, she will attend law school to become an international human rights lawyer. 

“After I finish college, I’m hoping I can work for UNICEF so I can help more people worldwide. Getting to be a big part of their legal team would be super awesome,” Simran said. 

Simran has been a ballet dancer for many years and will be continuing her ballet career in college.

I’m still going to dance in college because it’s very hard, and it’s very physically demanding and it’s like a very good exercise for you. So I’m gonna keep doing it because it is one of my passions outside of school,” Simran said.

Throughout the past four years, Simran has worked hard to maintain her grades and has taken the majority of advanced classes available. Even though Simran spent a lot of time on her schoolwork, she also participated in multiple extracurriculars. 

“All throughout highschool, I made sure my grades were top priority. But in addition to that, I really wanted to focus on my own passions and how to make the world a better place through that. So I started my own youth organization called Youth for the People. It’s a small team of around 20 of us that seek to educate and empower today’s youth on pressing global issues. In addition to that, I am the NHS vice president and part of Spanish Honor Society and I was the senior captain of the senior High Q team,” Simran said. 

While Simran is excited to start college and graduation grows nearer, she has said that she will miss the school she has grown to love.

“I would say there’s a lot of things that make me love this place. Being part of High Q is just really fun when we go to matches and stuff and like some of the memories I’ve created. They have been really great. And then just being able to have some of the amazing teachers that we have here have made this experience even more amazing. I feel like I’m very grateful to be here, and I’m grateful for everything I have. It’s definitely an indicator of like all the hard work paying off all the late nights. So now like in my last few weeks here, it feels really good,” Simran said. 

Mia Ontiveros

Senior Mia Ontiveros will be studying speech therapy at the University of Texas at Austin this coming fall. 

“My dad actually inspired me to be a speech therapist because that’s what he’s done his whole life and I really like what he does. I think that he makes an impact in his patients’ lives and I kind of want to do that,” Mia said.

During her four years at El Paso High, Mia was a part of multiple clubs including National Honor Society and Spanish Honor Society but most of her time was devoted to soccer. 

“Becoming district champs for soccer was one of the best parts of my time at EPHS. We had worked all four years, and afterwards, you’re so proud because this year you finally got it,” Mia said. 

Even though Mia made many memories and had many experiences through soccer and clubs, she still found herself wishing she had done more.

“If I could go back and change something I probably would have been a little bit more carefree I guess. I feel like I focused on school so much that I didn’t get to be a part of as many activities as I should have been,” Mia said. 

Despite missing out in some parts of high school, Mia excelled in her academics and accomplished a goal many others failed at. According to Mia, being a top 10 student is a tiresome, long process that requires a lot of work. 

“Being top 10 is something to be proud of I think. I mean I worked really hard all four years. And so it’s nice to see it actually pay off,” Mia said. 

Luis Torres

Luis Torres, a proud member of Orchestra, will be graduating after four years at El Paso High. He will attend UT Austin this coming fall as a digital media student this coming fall. 

“I plan to go to college at UT Austin, and to study digital media and from there and we’ll see where it takes me. But I mainly decided to study digital media because that’s just something I liked, and I decided to do something that I would be good at and like rather than something that everyone does. And I also wanted to pursue what I’m passionate about,” Luis said. 

During his time at El Paso High, Luis took part in many extracurriculars including Spanish Honor Society, National Honor Society, Math Club, and orchestra. This, paired with his hard work academically, earned him a scholarship to UT.

“I have gotten like the double scholar side, UT which is $20,000 for the four years and also recently got a $1,000 scholarship from a Cancer Foundation,” Luis said. 

Throughout the past four years, Luis has pursued his passion for music as a part of the school’s orchestra. 

“Being in orchestra is just, I just do it because it’s fun. I enjoy being in an orchestra. So I decided to do it for my four years just because I have fun. And I’ve played the violin since fifth grade so I never saw a reason to just stop,” Luis said. 

As his time at El Paso High is coming to a close, Luis finds himself thinking about his past experiences as a student. 

“I feel like I had a really great high school experience but if i could do it over again, I probably would have gotten more involved earlier in my four years because I only got involved in school activities my senior year,” Luis said.

Despite his regrets, Luis accomplished what few others can and finished his senior year in the top 10. 

“Evers since freshman year I really wanted to be high ranking just because I wanted to feel accomplished. So I took a lot of time to make sure I did all my homework. Throughout high school I always tried my best and put in a lot of effort even when I didn’t feel like it. But it paid off because I accomplished that goal from freshman year,” Luis said.