Creek Valley Class of 2016 Salutatorian – Joellyn Straber

For Joellyn Straber, being named salutatorian for the Creek Valley High School Class of 2016 was the payoff to her years of studying and sacrifice.

"I worked for it," she said. "I can definitely say that. I just did what I did."

Joellyn is the daughter of Shawn and Valerie Straber and the middle child in her family, with two older sisters and two younger sisters. She was born in Wheatridge, Col., and moved to Chappell while she was in the first grade.

Joellyn said she keeps herself busy with "a lot of extracurriculars," such as the FFA, the FCCLA, where she was this year's president, the school's spirit club, the FBLA and the NHS for a couple of years. She is also a part of the high school's volleyball and basketball teams.

"In FCCLA, I learned a lot about helping the community," Joellyn said. "And in FFA, I learned a lot about government, like I would have never what 'parliamentary procedure' was or how to run it, but now we've gone to state for it."

Joellyn said receiving salutatorian honors was something that took a lot of hard work, but she was very proud of the accomplishment.

"It was difficult trying to out-study the others," she said.

For her salutatorian speech at graduation, Joellyn said she plans to talk about her memories of the past four years, as well as how well she and her fellow classmates have worked well together.

"It took two nights (to write)," she said. "Hopefully, nobody looks down on me during my speech."

Joellyn said she is nervous about giving the speech as she is "not good at speaking in front of people."

Beginning this fall, Joellyn will be attending the University of Nebraska in Kearney where she will pursue a career in elementary education.

"Our government teacher, Penny Birkel, she went there and said they have a really good education program," she said. "I also heard they are a really good school, and aren't very expensive, which is always nice, and had good scholarships."

Joellyn said she grew up with friends telling her that she would make a good teacher, but had fought against it for a long time.

"They've been telling me that since I was in seventh grade," she said. "I always denied it, but now I've come to terms with it because I learned this year how much I like working with kids."

During her senior year, Joellyn worked as an aide for first grade teacher Stephanie Behrends.

"They offer seniors with good grades a class period where we can go aide for a teacher," she said. "And so me and three other people to to the elementary school during sixth hour. We make copies and help the students. We also help the teachers prepare and grade and whatever else they need help with."

Joellyne said she is looking to eventually teaching either first or third grade.

"With first grade, I really like the age group from when I was an aide for it," she said. "But third grade, you can do a lot more with the students because they're a little bit more mature."

Once she is done with college, Joellyn said she will be looking to teach somewhere else rather than returning to her hometown.

"I want a new experience," she said. "I don't want to go anywhere big, though. I want to get to know all of my students, you know?"