Top of the class: Meet the valedictorians from North and Henry high schools

You may want to jot down these names: Demetria Jones and Angel Alberto Arredondo Payan. They are the 2022 valedictorians for the Northside’s two high schools, Henry and North and the top honor is only the beginning for these scholars with big plans. North News reporter Azhae’la Hanson interviewed Jones and Arredondo Payan for the Neighbors profile in the June 24 edition.

Henry valedictorian is ready to be the change he wants to see

Angel Alberto Arredondo Payan. Photo by Azhae’la Hanson

Angel Alberto Arredondo Payan didn't know what a valedictorian was until he became one. The Henry High senior normally kept his head down and only learned of the honor just days before he officially earned the title.

“I'm not an attention seeker,” said Arredondo Payan. “For this whole valedictorian thing, I didn't even know what that was before a couple of days ago. I wasn't aiming for it at all and it kind of just happened because I worked hard.”

His father worked hard to make sure that his children didn't have to. The recent events of the pandemic and racial injustices have inspired Arredondo Payan to pursue a career in engineering and artificial intelligence.

He wants to create an easier life for humanity.

He wants to encourage the class of 2022 to go out into the world with the intention of making it better than it is today. He will be entering the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota in the fall.

Arredondo Payan chatted with North News about his academic career. The conversation has been lightly edited for brevity.

Where did you grow up? What is your family like? What do you like to do for fun?

I grew up here in North Minneapolis. I grew up in an apartment building and I live with a family of five total, two siblings and then my mom and my dad. We used

to live in a two-bedroom apartment and had to share beds but recently we moved to a house. For fun, I like soccer, fishing, and sculpting, but I’m new at it.

What is it like growing up with a large family? Do you have older siblings who you look up to? Being the youngest, have you ever felt like you needed to work harder to prove yourself?

I'm the youngest. And in terms of proving to myself there's actually a good story behind that. My sister was the first one to go to college. She ended up going to Augsburg. She also went to Henry and so did my brother. I'm the last of the three to go to Henry. My brother started out going to the U of M. After two years, he decided it wasn’t for him and moved to a trade school and got a degree in welding. He is doing pretty good for himself now. And that showed me that I don't have to prove myself in comparison to my siblings, but I can follow my own path like my siblings did and still be successful and happy. I do feel like the four-year college route is for me. And initially, when I came here, I kind of had the mentality of trying to outdo my sister but then I followed my own path like my siblings did, the only difference is that I'm the valedictorian.

What does it feel like to be the valedictorian? Was the journey to graduation difficult or easy?

Well, if I'm being honest, at first, I didn't even know what a valedictorian was until I got told recently that I have the honor. Honestly, the pandemic hit me hard because I made sure to keep home and school separate. When I'm at home I can relax because I don't want to be overstressed with my work/life balance. But when those two like crossed because of COVID-19, it was really hard for me to get myself up and do work. But I just kept saying in my head “this is so you can go to college, this is how you can get a job, this is how you can support your family.” And that's kind of what kept me going through that whole time.

Did you ever face anything, besides a pandemic that changed your perspective on school or who you want to become? What do you want to do in life?

Basically, all the recent events, we had the pandemic, we had the death of George Floyd, we had the teacher strike here. All of these have been things that I've had to go through. And through these events, I’ve realized that I'm the type of person who likes to help others and that’s the type of career I want to be in as well. That's why I stayed focused in school because if I want to make the change I want to see, I need to get a good education.

How have your extracurriculars here, the staff, students, and your overall experience at Henry contributed to who you're becoming as a person, and as a student?

I would say that the staff and students here, especially my friends, guided me to this point. My friends always push me and compete for who can get better, faster. Every year, I've gotten to know my teachers better and have developed good mentor relationships with them. That has helped me a lot because they like to be realistic and give advice on what’s best for me and I always take it into consideration.

What is a typical day for you like in school?

I would wake up from around 6:30 am to 7:00 am, go to school, go home, eat, give myself an hour to watch TV, and then I would immediately start doing my schoolwork. I would usually be up until 2 a.m. studying or doing coursework

Do you have a favorite teacher at Henry? A favorite place on campus?

It's a tough one. Yeah. It would have to be the Chinese class teachers and the teachers in the mathematics department. My first-hour class was my favorite place to be because in the morning it was calmer, and my teacher, Mr. Wells, would bring doughnuts sometimes.

What kind of career are you leaning towards right now?

I'm leaning towards something in the engineering department. Currently, I'm looking at like computer science and software development. I got accepted to the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota and will be attending in the fall.

Can you elaborate a little bit more on helping people? What's your big vision that you have, in the next five to 10 years for yourself?

In terms of helping people, the main task engineers face is to make life easier for others. I want to work with Artificial Intelligence because I think that is going to have a big impact on helping people in the future.

Who inspires you? What are you passionate about?

Yeah, it's kind of cliche, but I'd say my dad and my brother. It would be my dad because he came over from Mexico to the United States and worked long hours having several jobs in order to keep a roof over our heads, along with my mom. He always tells me every day that he works hard so that I can get an education and not have to work as hard. And my brother also inspires me because he kind of followed in my dad's footsteps, but he also took his own route to get there.

What do you think people don't know about you that you would like them to know?

I think what people don't really know about me is the fact that I'm not an attention seeker. For this whole valedictorian thing, I didn't even know what that was before a couple of days ago. I wasn't aiming for it at all and it kind of just happened because I worked hard.

What is a piece of advice that you want to give to other students?

Getting good at time management, that was my biggest problem. I would let a lot of work pile up because I would try to do stuff that was more recently assigned instead of stuff that was due.

North valedictorian was ‘the one’ all along

Demetria Jones. Photo by Azhae’la Hanson

Demetria Jones got into the groove of proving herself early on. She recalls her family constantly referring to her as “the one” because of how well she performed academically.

She says her experience transitioning from predominantly white schools to North High helped shape who she is today. She wanted to prove others wrong. She wanted to achieve success and excellence on her own terms.

Today, she is “the one,” as North High School’s 2022 valedictorian. While at North, she has balanced being a student, an athlete, an organization leader, and an artist with Legacy Arts Group.

She attributes a lot of her success to hard work and building strong relationships with her teachers. Jones will be attending St. Catherine University in St. Paul in the fall and will let her natural inclination toward education and helping others guide her in choosing her future career.

Jones shared the highlights of her journey with North News. The conversation was lightly edited for brevity.

Where did you grow up? What's your family like?

I came to North where most of my family and a lot of my family went. So, like that was kind of like my connection in North and then my cousins were going here, and they were begging me to come and I was like guys, like I don't know if I'm going to fit in or if I don't know if I'm going

to be right here. So, then I came to North, and I was perfectly fine. I made a lot of friends and created good relationships so that's been fun. My family like they're crazy, but I love them, and they always support me.

How did your educational experiences shape who you are today?

Before I got to North, I lived in the suburbs and went to predominantly white schools in Blaine. I was always the only black girl in my classes, especially the advanced ones. That experience really shaped who I am. I got into the routine of always proving myself so, no matter what room I walked into, I always felt like I had something to prove and that’s not always positive because the people who I felt I needed to prove myself to weren’t always people who had my best interest in mind. And so now I feel like I need to do something perfectly, or it wouldn’t be done right.

Could you tell me a little bit about the transition from going to a predominantly white school to a predominantly black one? What was that like for you?

It was kind of a shock. My family grew up on the Northside and a lot of them went to North and are alumni. So, I always had that culture around me, but because I didn’t go to school with people who looked like me, I always felt like I couldn’t express or really be myself when I went to those PWIs. I didn't really express myself at all in the way that I did when I came to North and often code-switched. When I came to North, however, I was able to fully be myself. And that was different, but different in a good way. Before I came to North I didn't have as many close relationships with staff. Here, the principal is great, the teachers are great, and I have been able to express myself more creatively.

Has your journey of becoming the valedictorian been an easy one or difficult? Have you always taken school seriously?

I've always taken school seriously. I remember being in kindergarten in classes with second graders, and I've always been considered the “smart” one in my family, whatever that means. My family calls me, and they'll say “Meme is going to be the one” so always being the “smarter” one made me take school seriously ever since grade school. Freshman year was my most challenging year, but I feel like that's for everybody. I was coming into a new environment and the challenge level was different. But eventually, I got my groove and created strong relationships with my teachers, and I feel like that's what always differentiated me from other students. I always made sure I created strong relationships with my teachers, because I feel like that makes a huge difference in life, even your grades sometimes. I had some struggles and some ups and downs and problems with families and personal problems, that really made it hard for me to focus on school, but I was always kept on the right track with support from teachers, family, and friends.

You have mentioned expressing yourself and I know North is an arts- heavy school. What are you involved in? How have you been able to express yourself?

Even though I came into North on the STEM side of their program, I was still heavy into the arts. I’m a former member of the Legacy Arts Group that was assembled by Miss French and performed spoken word and writing with the group. She made me feel seen and that was empowering so I started to be on school committees. I was the only student on the interview committee, where we interviewed teachers who wanted to work at North the next year. We hired a teacher, Miss Kowsar. She's one of the teachers for social studies, one of the few Black teachers here. I started my own club called Black Girls United in 11th grade, where the purpose was to create a safe space for black girls to share their experiences, and what goes on in school, and to create a better school climate. I also took a C.I.S (College in the Schools class), a writing course, and a literature course from the University of Minnesota, in which I won a poetry contest. The combination of supportive staff and an environment that supported me and my interests, whether creative or academic, gave me many opportunities. Staff would recommend things to me because they know me and before I never had people who were always advocating for me to get into the spaces that I wanted to be in like the North staff.

How did these extracurriculars contribute to your growth as a student and as a person?

In a practical way, they made me handle time management better and learn to prioritize because I had a lot going on, sometimes keeping busy from 8 am to 9 pm. I would have to manage classes, sports (softball), and the Legacy Arts Group. Now I always create lists for everything.

What was it like dealing with school and a pandemic?

When the pandemic started, I lost a lot of motivation. I feel like it was like a blur almost, and I don't know if I learned anything from that year. I wasn't motivated, which is very unusual for me. It was so hard for me to hang on, and if it wasn't for the people in my life, who were like “okay come on, you have to get up, you have to do this,” I don't know where I would be because I was so unmotivated during the pandemic. I was always in the house and my family was very strict about going outside because they were scared. I couldn't see my friends as much and I had nothing to keep me busy. It wasn't until the last stretch of 11th grade that we finally got to come back to school where I was able to better myself and get out of the funk I was in. When we came back to school, I was able to create that routine again where I was getting up, going to school, talking to people and I was able to get my motivation back and become myself again. But it was very hard.

What's an important piece of advice you can give to other students?

Make sure you create relationships and connections with people. People, not just people who are important but just people in your life who can support you because if it wasn't for those relationships, I don't think I would be put in the places or the pedestals that I've been put on. It's not what you know, it's who you know, and if you know the right people, then you'll be put in the right places. Also, make sure you don't alter who you are, don't let other people make you into somebody that you're not if they're not benefiting you in the right way. They just like you know, push those people to the side because I've had people in my life who were toxic and weren't benefiting me and trying to change who I am.

What is something that you are excited about in the near future and where do you see yourself in five to 10 years?

I just want to prosper and be successful.

What career path do you think you kind of want to go down?

Education. I want to become a history teacher. I feel like that's what I'm most connected to. When I have jobs or internships, it's always something rooted in teaching. Last year I worked at an elementary school, where I was a teacher's aide at Pillsbury Elementary. This summer I'm working at Franklin middle school. When I have done past community service with the National Honor Society that I’m in, I chose peer tutoring. So I always tend to do something where I'm teaching or helping. All of that always feels like the most rewarding for me, so I think that's something that I would enjoy. I'm also thinking about like, business administration because that just seems like something I would do.

What school will you be attending in the fall?

I'm going to St. Catherine University in the fall

Is there anything else you would like to say?

You don't have to be the smartest in the room. You don't have to be like the most talented. You don't even have to be like the most hardworking, but you must know people and have a goal and just set your mind to it because I feel like that's what I did. Once you set a goal, you can always reach it. That's so cliche.