On Monday, January 22, 2024, two BFA Seniors were honored at the Golden Dome for their academic excellence. BFA Fairfax students Peyton Metruk and Malayna Sweet-Werneke were selected as Vermont Presidential Scholars in recognition of student citizenship, academics, and leadership excellence. Both students were introduced by high school English Language Arts educator, Eve Thorsen. Please read Ms. Thorsen’s remarks about these outstanding students. Congratulations Peyton and Malayna!
Peyton Metruk
Being Presidential means leading and, hopefully, leading with confidence in a way that inspires others. Peyton Metruk meets this description well but she goes beyond those basic qualities in leadership: she leads with a confidence that is tempered by humility and inspires with sensitivity and also joy. It’s this blend of the bold with the humble that makes Peyton such a delightful student to have in the classroom, combined, of course with her natural aptitude in academic work. Place Peyton with blustering, overconfident peers, and she holds her own more than adequately and nurtures the quieter members of her group. Place her with those who worry about every word, and are convinced they’re failures, and Peyton lifts them up so they can see their own possibilities. She is, in so many respects, a student who embodies our district’s guiding idea: a belief in what’s possible. She makes those possibilities open up for others and also for herself, through her insightful critical thinking and her compassionate, warm-hearted nature. That is why she is renowned throughout the school for not only her academic skills but also her beautiful character. This is exemplified by her active participation in many of our schools’ clubs focused on community and well-being. The one that stands out for me is Creative Connections, a club she developed extensively with a fellow student. This club pairs high school students with their younger peers in a mentoring relationship which brings excitement and support to many elementary students, as well as helps build an understanding in our high schoolers that relationships are the most important thing in our world. For these reasons and more, Peyton is an obvious choice as a Presidential Scholar, and I have no doubt this will be the start of her path toward an even greater presidential opportunity.
Malayna Sweet Werneke
‘Intrepid’ is a word we usually see connected to daring adventurers, people climbing mountains, crossing roaring rivers, or trekking across deserts. But in Malayna Sweet Werneke’s case, I’d say intrepid is an accurate description of the young woman I know and her approach to her academic life. Our school is one of Vermont’s treasured small schools and that means, with all its advantages, there is also a downside: very challenging scheduling. That became exacerbated by the disruption of the pandemic and Malyana found herself in her junior year with a schedule that was full of required courses, leaving no room for the challenging college-level courses she wanted to experience. Some students would be daunted and just give up, accepting that they couldn’t tackle higher-level classes. But not Malayna. She enrolled herself in my Project English class, a class in which students of all abilities were invited to develop their own Language Arts project. Malayna used the opportunity to complete a research paper for a Dual Enrollment English college credit and then went on to complete coursework for Advanced Placement English Language, leading to Advanced Placement English Language and Composition. That’s what I call daring and intrepid! But Malayna even went beyond that: she couldn’t make her second-semester schedule fit to complete the second half of the AP Language course. Her solution? She signed up for the second semester of my AP Literature course: she hadn’t taken the first semester of AP Literature, but instead, she independently read all the works we completed in that semester so she would be prepared. That was most definitely intrepid! And, because of her positive, can-do attitude, and her willingness to work hard, Malayna not only enjoyed two college-level courses she would otherwise have missed, but she also aced her AP exams, with college-level passes in both. For me, this intrepid approach to her education is what makes Malayna a true Presidential Scholar.
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