Shawnee Valedictorian and Salutatorian reflect on their achievements

The grads plan on attending Virginia Tech and Swarthmore College.

Scoring a perfect 6.0 GPA while participating in a slew of extra-curricular activities, Shawnee High School senior Steven Campbell has been crowned as his school’s valedictorian.

“I’m excited and proud of my accomplishment,” Campbell said.

Throughout the course of his four years at Shawnee, Campbell participated on the robotics team, the National Honor Society, Latin Club, Greendot and the Science League.

He was one of the leaders of his robotics team and was president of his NHS chapter.

He was particularly proud of his experience with the robotics team.

“Each January, we get a game challenge that we design a new robot for,” Campbell said. “And then we get six weeks to design, build, wire, program and test out creations, and then after those six weeks, it gets locked away and we can’t touch it until a competition.

“It’s different every year. Freshman year we got a basically oversized exercise ball and we had to shoot it into a large goal at either end of the field.

“Probably after junior [year] I had a feeling,” Campbell said of when he had the first inkling of whether he could earn valedictorian status.

Outside of school, Campbell participated in Boy Scouts, where he earned Eagle Scout status.

In the fall, Campbell will head to Virginia Polytechnic and State University to major in computer engineering.

Shawnee’s salutatorian, Megan Strachan, who also graduated with a 6.0 GPA, had an accomplished high school resume as well.

She participated in the Latin club, Greendot, NHS and the animal welfare club.

She was also a member of the varsity swim team all four years of school.

She plans to continue swimming in the fall at Swarthmore College, where she’ll be pursuing her degree in engineering.

Her dream job is utilize her engineering skills to be an imagineer for Walt Disney.

“It allows me to be technical, but still be creative, and that’s important to me,” she said of her ideal future career. Strachan is a big fan of Walt Disney World, which is also where the Shawnee seniors had their senior trip.

“I just really love it,” she said. “It’s one of those places I’m happiest.”