Bolton Co-Valedictorian: Anna Brawner

Anna Brawner is one of three co-valedictorians for Bolton High School’s Class of 2017. She has pursued the school’s International Baccalaureate Diploma and has earned a 4.72 GPA. She will be attending the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

She earned the honor of being class valedictorian through hard work and commitment to that goal. She has taken 12 honors classes, 13 IB classes and 3 advanced placement (AP) classes. She has already earned college credit by scoring a 4 on the AP psychology exam, and 3 on the AP history and AP human geography exams. She has already proven herself capable of college-level work.

Anna balances academics with a number of school, community and athletic activities, contributing to broad areas of school life. Anna has represented Bolton High School in both the local and regional Knowledge Bowl competitions and served in student government as a class representative for all four years of high school. She and other students created the Bolton Renaissance Committee to enhance and beautify the campus, and they have carried out numerous projects over the past 18 months to upgrade campus grounds and facilities. She also took the leadership in the Bolton Food Drive that provided food for families at Bolton who are experiencing chronic or emergency food shortages.

She shone as a Best Buddy for some of the school’s functional skills students as she organized a Field Day for them and made sure they each got to participate and receive recognition.

She has earned membership in the National Honor Society, National Spanish Honor Society, and Beta Club. for which she serves as vice-president. She was chosen as a mentor to help freshmen in their transition to high school.

She is a four-year starter on the Bolton Tennis Team and last year represented her school in the regional competitions. She led the team her senior year as captain. She was chosen as the Wendy’s Heisman Trophy Athlete from Bolton in recognition of outstanding academics, community service and athletic contributions.

Anna likes to learn about people in an effort to know how to help them. She has travelled to Brazil, Tanzania, France, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, Italy and Spain. She has led Pioneer Evangelism clubs in Tanzania and Honduras, and she leads the praise service for both youth and adults by playing guitar. She recently finished a Memphis in May Triathlon where she ran, biked and swam for a total of 26 miles. She also ran the St. Jude half marathon in December.