Valenzuela was shocked when she heard she was picked as one of Kofa’s top interesting people since sh is not really “out there”. “People always ask me why I’m shy, however I’m not that shy. At times I don’t want to talk. Or I don’t like them. So I don’t talk. I don’t think I’m all that shy at all.” However, Valenzuela was still really happy that she was chosen. “I feel a little honored, I rarely get noticed so this is different for me,” said Valenzuela.

Lydia is in love with bands and all they do, specifically Pierce the Veil (PTV). “I love their music so much. I don’t think I can even elaborate why I adore them. Their lyrics are so inspiring. They’ve been my favorite band for 5 years already, I could literally listen to them all day. Plus all the guys in the band have amazing personalities and they’re just totally awesome,” said Valenzuela. So imagine her delight when she was able to not only meet PTV, but to also asked the lead singer of PTV, Vic Fuentes, if she could kiss him on the cheek. “Vic’s eyes widened and he just laughed and said ‘Go for it.’ I was so nervous,” said Valenzuela. She secretly loves to draw and she hopes to one day use that talent to help bands. Valenzuela hopes to design shirts for band. “I’d design shirts for Pierce The Veil (of course), Bring Me The Horizon, Of Mice and Men, Asking Alexandria, and just a bunch of other bands.”

Valenzuela is sure of wants she wants and what she is going to do. Besides working in the emergency room, she really wants to go to Paris, France. “I’ve always wanted to take the elevator to the top and enjoy the view of Paris,” said Valenzuela. She also hopes try all the exquisite food that Paris has to offer. Valenzuela would like to try to study abroad because she really wants to see how other countries different from America.

“My mom’s my role model because she’s one of the strongest figures in my life. She’s inspired me to be part of the medical field as well considering she’s in it as well. I don’t know where I’d be without my mother. She’s always caring and supportive over everything I do,” said Valenzuela.

She hopes to attend Arizona Western College for two years and then transfer to Northern Arizona University to finish off her degree in nursing. She hopes to work in the emergency room in a different state in 10 years. “The E.R draws me in because I love helping out people. Plus, you never know what type of injury is going to come in, so you’re constantly going to be at the edge of your seat, waiting to help out someone,” said Valenzuela. However, she also has dreams to reach beyond the ER, Valenzuela would not mind joining a crime scene investigation team. “There’s so many different crimes that occur and to help figure them out would be very interesting,” said Valenzuela.

 “I think what makes me unique is the fact that I’m really accepting of people. I get along with so many people, no matter how they look or who they are. I’m comfortable with anyone, no matter of their religion, sexual preference, or ethnicity. There’s not a lot of people like that these days,” said Valenzuela.

Upon graduating from high school, Weick attended Triton College in Illinois and earned his Associate of Science Degree. He also attended Illinois State where he acquired his Bachelor’s Degree. Weick earned his Masters Degree at Northern Arizona University.

As a teenager, Weick grew up in the Chicago area in a little town called Westchester. He attended Provisor West High School and participated in his school band playing the trumpet. “I used to play the trumpet, but then I realized I sucked at it,” said Weick. He looks up to Jesus as his role model. “I don’t think there’s any other man worth looking up to. There’s no man there to help you after you’re dead,” said Weick. He also said, “He’s God, seems like a pretty good role model.”

Weick likes to play the Zombies mode on a video game named Call of Duty. “One way for me to connect with my son is to play video games. I do it for him, and I enjoy it,” said Weick. He also enjoys woodworking. When asked what kind of woodwork he likes to build, he said, “Mostly furniture items. I did all the woodwork in my house.” Playing Call of Duty: Zombies and woodwork isn’t the only hobbies Weick enjoys. He also likes to play the piano, but does not consider himself a good pianist. In fact, Weick’s dream job is to be a concert pianist. Sleeping is another one of his hobbies.

When Weick was a senior, he experienced an unforgettable moment in his life. While he and his friend were on the highway, they decided to test the speed of his Chevrolet Citation. “It was around nine o’clock on a rainy night,” said Weick. He and his friend sped down the highway at more than 90 mph. As he was passing another car on the highway, his car began to ‘fishtail’ and it spun around, causing them to drive backwards on the highway. Weick was traveling a little over 90 mph when he happened to hit an object that spun his Citation again. Eventually, Weick ended up facing the correct direction on the road. Although nobody was hurt, his car suffered minimal damage to the rear bumper. Driving backwards on the highway isn’t the only dangerous thing that has happened to him. Weick was working on a woodwork project using a tool called a planer. As he peeked into the machine to see if it was working properly, a piece of wood shot out of the machine and hit him right above his left eye. As a calculus teacher, Weick calculated the speed of the wood and came up with an approximate speed of 170 mph. Another incident occurred when he cut his right hand open while also woodworking. “I’m kind of a dangerous person with power tools,” said Weick. His greatest success is remaining alive after after having done many stupid things.

“Unlike Mr. Incredible, I have chosen to keep my true identity private and thus avoid relocation,” said Weick. He chose to keep his super-powers and super-hero name a secret. Before he dies, Weick would like to go to the bathroom and then lay down and fall asleep.

When asked ‘what is your pet peeve,’ Weick responded with a surprisingly large list of pet peeves. A few of his pet peeves are people who litter, people who drive slow in the left lane people who aren’t punctual, and people who have a lot of pet peeves.

   Andrea Tiutan ,says this is her favorite quote. “Everyone is trying to be perfect but it’s the people in this world that make it interesting,” said Tiutan. She is a 17 year old senior at Kofa High School who has two dogs, a chocolate Labrador retriever named Coco and a chihuahua mix named Pixie. She works best in the nighttime and has read all the Harry Potter books. Tiutan believes the most interesting thing about her is her heritage, which is Filipino- Chinese-Spanish. She was born in the Philippines,and lived there until she was 3 years old. She moved to the United States of America with her mother  and her three older brothers after her parents divorced. She moved to Los Angeles, California later moving to Baltimore, Maryland for a little under a year. Tiutan did not like living in Baltimore, “The East coast vibe is not for me, people are too cold. (The) West coast is so chill,” said Tiutan. Later she  moved back to LA and in the sixth grade she came to Yuma and has stayed ever since.

 She has many inspirations and dreams that could be seen as intriguing.  As the Vice President of Student Government,Tiutan believes one of the most prominent  things she learned is communication skills, humbleness, and public speaking.  As a member of Student Government, Tiutan has to interact with a variety of people for organizing events. In order to do this  she must  have the ability to deal with any  situation with politeness and assertiveness.  Student Government has taught her to be humble because there is no glory for the individual, only the group.

  Tiutan also participates in drama’s Production and Performance class. In her Junior year she needed a fine arts class and at first was going to take ceramics, however; her friend told her to join drama because it helps with public speaking and communication.  She enjoyed Drama 1 and wanted to tryout for Production and Performance. Tiutan was worried she would not make it and almost did not tryout but her drama class encouraged her to do it.

   Tiutan’s most important piece of advice would be “Don’t take anything for granted because you only live through high school once. Get involved with clubs, sports and events.”   She says being apart of Student Government and Drama have been a life changing experience.

  Tiutan is planning to go to the University of Arizona (UofA) in Tucson for college. “I thought it was the best in-state school, even though ASU (Arizona State University) and NAU (Northern Arizona University) gave me a lot more scholarship money. I thought the application (for UofA) was more rigorous and thorough,” said Tiutan.  In college Tiutan wants to double major in Retail and Consumer Science as well as Spanish linguistics. “I always wanted to be bi-lingual, and I find the spanish language beautiful,” said Tiutan.  She is going to study Retail and Consumer Science  because she wants to become a retailer. A retailer has to predict trends months before they occur, work with designers and then sell the clothing or technology to stores. Tiutan chose this career path because she loves fashion, math and organizing events.

    Tiutan’s greatest success is having almost all of her school paid for because of all the scholarships. She is ranked #17 and did not think many scholarships would choose her. She feels it is her greatest success because she slacked off in the beginning years of high school because school was easy for her, which is now her biggest regret looking back on high school. Tiutan is very proud because she said she worked very hard on her scholarship essays.

     Her biggest challenge throughout high school has been managing her academic, social, and home life. “You can’t have it all,” said Tiutan about balancing her activities. She is sad because of all her school events she is barely home.

     In the future Tiutan would like to go backpacking across China, Thailand and Japan. “I want to see the continent of Asia , meet a bunch of different people and take a year off from my life,” said Tiutan when asked why she wanted to do it. She hopes to be living  in Southern California  in 10 years. Tiutan also hopes to one day have three children; she wants to teach them to speak English, Spanish and Tagalog, the language of the Philippines.

Hercilia’s favorite art interest would be digital design. “I would like to be famous for the digital drawings I do, over other arts that I participate in.” said Martinez. She attends anime club after school on Tuesdays to help her further her skills in digital design. In this club Hercilia learns more about anime, digital designs, and the Japanese culture. She prefers this club over others because it “satisfies” her art abilities after school hours. Anime club helps Hercilia link into the drawings she wishes to do for a career. When she is not at anime club after school she is attending workshop for ceramics. This occupies a lot of time for Martinez.

“I want to land a job in creative concepts, so that I can help envision and create what another person wants to dream of.” said Hercilia. Her dreams may be big, but she is determined to reach them. In order to reach her goals as being a digital designer Martinez states, “For now, I will try to keep focus on college, and never stop drawing… NEVER!”

 Hercilia says that as long as she is doing what she cares about, grades aren’t a huge factor. Martinez is also “not a big fan” of loud people, or ones that are annoying. She would rather it be quiet and so she spends a lot of time drawing in the library.

Martinez also takes part in ceramics. She produces pottery and other sculptures. One of her creations was placed in the Yuma County Fair and won the Purple Rosette, which is one of the highest ribbons you can win. This item was a koala wearing a safari suit with a red bandana around its’ neck, sitting with a smile. “I would travel as far needed to show off my artwork,” said Martinez. She enjoys showing off her new creations with close friends. They appreciate her work more.

Her sister, who is 31, has always been there for her by supplying support. Ofelia, Hercilia’s sister went to a convention for an artist. The artist was Katie Cook. Katie is a comic book artist and illustrator, which is another thing Hercilia was fascinated by. When her sister was there, she bought Hercilia a water-colored walrus, which now Hercilia holds close to her heart. Martinez is very grateful her sister understands her art, unlike other family members. She feels that if she showed her drawings or art projects to certain family that she would not be happy with their reaction. Despite not having a lot of support at home, Hercilia continues to thrive in art. Another one of her favorite memories is when she worked beside her brother, painting. He would add a portion to the project and the Hercilia would finish it. They would do this just for the fun of it.

Hercilia lives by the quote “Actions speak louder than words.” “I could tell you I’m the best at drawing, or I could show you, showing you my drawings will make you a better judge of saying what’s best than me just telling you,” said Martinez.

While a lot of teens take part in sports, Martinez states, “I can communicate with pictures and I can perform with activities, but I’d rather stick with sitting and creating my ideas of art.”

 When asked where he was born, Jensen, a comedian in training replied , “in west Philadelphia born and raised on the playground where I spent most of my days chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool and all shooting some b-ball outside of the school. When a couple of guys, they were up to no good, started making trouble in my neighborhood. I got in one little fight and my mom got scared. She said, ‘you’re movin’ with your aunty and uncle to Bel-Air,” this was part of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song. Jensen is originally from Flagstaff and moved to Yuma when he was about three months old. He lives with his mom Jennifer and dad Edwin, three younger sisters Abigail, Aidan, Adleigh and two Great Danes, Bella and Ceasar.

Freshman year Jensen was a member of marching band he played the trumpet, the following year he did not continue with marching band because, “it would not be the same without Mr. Schattin.” Over the summer before Jensen was going into sophomore year he lost sixty pounds with the ketosis diet, meaning he cut out carbs. Jensen lost the weight because, “nobody likes being fat.” In replacement of marching band he chose to play football his sophomore year on the JV team predominantly as a defensive end, but occasionally he played offense as a tackle. “It’s a fun game, but I enjoyed the connections made with teammates rather than actually playing,” Jensen’s quote on football.

In five to ten years Jensen sees himself in college as a full time student. Jensen’s dream job is to be a comedian, he already has two notebooks full of jokes he has written, but has not been able to read them because there are no comedy clubs in Yuma. Jensen said, “I’m a realist and I know i’m not gonna be a comedian.” His career plan is to be a psychologist, but is also considering becoming a lawyer instead. Jensen does not have a preference on colleges. “As a caucasian male, there aren’t very many scholarships available, so whatever school gives me the most in scholarship money,” said Jensen in response to the question what college do you hope to attend.

Jensen’s other goals in life include to die content, meaning happy and to help people. Jensen said, “I like helping people. If a plane were to crash, I’d go help them.” Jensen’s role model would be Mr. Franey, who also likes to help people. Mr. Franey is Jensen’s role model because, “Franey is just always ready to talk and give his honest opinion.” Jensen was honest when it came to his pet peeve, which would be stupid people. Another quote Jensen lives by is, “True intelligence is knowing the extent of one’s own ignorance.” Ignorance is being oblivious or unaware; lacking knowledge or education. This quote corresponds with Jensen’s pet peeve, stupid people, “In my mind I’m smarter than everybody, but I know I’m not.”

    Dale has dreams of going to Stanford or Berklee University to study medicine or music theory. However, one of his big dreams is to be on “The Voice” to hopefully kick off his singing career. Being in Royalaires here at Kofa helps him with his singing and he writes his own lyrics and music at home on his piano. He has high hopes of becoming like his role model Brendon Urie. Brendon Urie is the lead singer of the band Panic at the Disco that has been inspiring Dale for a couple of years. “He writes deep and funny lyrics and his voice is just amazing,” said Dale. Singing will always be Dale’s passion.

    Aside from singing Dale has been acting since he was in elementary school. He was introduced to acting at an early age by his mother who has a degree in theater.  Throughout elementary school he was in drama club which his mother would run. It was most fun for him acting in the plays that his mother would write for the school.  He began acting again his sophomore year in high school in Drama Club. He then auditioned for Seussical the Musical in which he got the part of “The Cat in the Hat”. “I like acting because it brings me out of my comfort zone and it’s just really fun to be someone else,” said Dale. Acting is something he will continue throughout high school being in Production and Performance next year and hopefully doing main stage performances.

    Outside of school Ian loves to do karate. Wanting to be like the actors in cool karate movies, Dale signed up not knowing what to expect. Soon after joining he loved it and has been in karate for four years. He became a proud black belt and plans on becoming even better and stronger than he is right now.

    Before Dale dies he wants to go skydiving along with traveling the world. Exploring places like France, Rome and Australia would be highlights of Dale’s grand trip. One place Dale has had the chance is explore is Hawaii. Going to Hawaii was Dale’s most memorable moment in his life. “Going from here where I live in the desert to a lush green island with water it’s amazing.” Since going to Hawaii, Dale learned how different the world can be even when you are in the same country.

One little quote that helps Dale through the day is “Just keep swimming.” Whenever he is having a bad day or feels like giving up he thinks of the quote and repeats it in his head. “I’m just like I got to keep going, keep persevering, and pushing myself. That is what that quote means to me.”

Being on the more imaginative side Dale would be a waterbender if he could be a superhero with his superhero name being H2Ian. Being able to freeze things with water and being graceful with the ability to kill fascinates him. Water is everywhere and the thought of being able to turn into vapor and travel through the air is amazing said Dale.

    Overall Dale considers himself weird. He is a nice person even though he can be pessimistic and mean sometimes.  He is outgoing and doesn’t care what other people think about him but at the same time can be insecure on the inside about himself.

 Hernandez was born on February 21, 1996 in Corona, California. He moved to Yuma to be with his father. Although he does not participate in after school curricular activities, you can find him skateboarding around town or at the local skate park at Kennedy Park.  “There’s a lot of reasons why I enjoy skating. But, I guess the main reason is because everyday there’s always something new to learn and once you learn the trick, you can throw it off some stairs, a ledge, a rail over a gap,”said Hernandez. Being very talented at skateboarding Hernandez can perform over one hundred and twenty two tricks, including a  backside flip, fakie half cab flip, fakie frontside flip, molle flip, varial heel. With the Fakie frontside flip being his favorite trick out of the one hundred and twenty two.

Hernandez has also competed in five skateboard competitions. “Well my first two were in Cali at Bell Skate Park, I got fourth and seventh. The last three were in Yuma, one was by Dune Sea Crew, I got second. The other two were by Figment I made it to the last run but then got disqualified,”  said Hernandez. He began to skate when,” my friend was into skating and I thought it would be pretty fun to learn how. So I bought a board, he taught me, and I ended up being way better than him. After that I wasn’t skating for fun anymore. I just wanted to improve more. So it basically just grew on me.”

A couple of his greatest fears are hospitals and blood, “I don’t know how to explain because, when I see someone getting cut open or stabbed or anything like that. I think about how it would feel if it happend to me.  I don’t know why but yeah it just freaks me out and hurts me when I see it,” said Hernandez. Although he is afraid of hospitals he is anticipating becoming injured from his skateboarding career. After high school he plans to attend The Art Institute of Phoenix or San Diego. Although that was not his first choice, “I just wanted to go to a community one and get my bachelor’s out of the way so if I ever got injured and couldn’t skate I had a plan B,” said Hernandez.

    While attending an Art Institute, Hernandez wants to major in graphic design. One of his dreams is to design for his favorite skate brands such as, Toy Machine and Altamont.

 “I’ve already sent my art to companies and they liked it but that never went anywhere. So I wanna make my own skate brand”, said Hernandez. He began being interested in art at the age of six from his father Gerardo. Hernandez said,”I just draw one thing, then I connect it to something else and i start adding stuff, mainly weird stuff.” Another thing he wants to do is follow in his fathers footsteps in becoming a realtor agent. Since his father is the number one real estate agent in California for Century 21.

He has a lot of goals and dreams for himself but he is sure he will reach them all.

Her hobbies include volleyball, basketball and coaching little kids. She has played both sports here at Kofa High School. She started coaching little kids when she was 14 years old because it was something her dad did. Jasmine was encouraged to coach little kids because she knows that if she had people there to help her she would be a lot better. Ortiz also enjoys seeing the young generations get interested in sports. Jasmine would like to be famous for playing volleyball in the Olympics.

Jasmine’s dream jobs are to become a detective or a volleyball coach at a college. She enjoys helping people and solving things and that is why she would like to be a detective. When asked where does she herself in ten 10 years from now  she said “having a great job with my own family, living somewhere far from here. I do see myself as a coach in a college in S.D.”

Her hidden talent is playing ping-pong. She does not play ping-pong as much as she would like but she does whenever she can. When she was younger she was really good at baseball.

Her hardest experience was when her parents got divorced. She was 13 years old. But she learnt from that experience.It taught her how to be strong and how to be there for those who needed her the most.

If there is one thing Jasmine could change is “being insecure about myself” she said. Jasmine considers herself a trustworthy person. She keeps her promises and  and also adds that people do trust her a lot and have helped her achieve her goals. A person who has always been there for her is Adly Wiley.

She dislikes arrogant people and her biggest pet-peeve is losing. “Nothing makes me more mad” said Ortiz referring to losing. Another thing she dislikes is people who do not try.

Her best high school experience yet is this years last basketball game against Cibola. “The last time we beat them was 2006 and we finally got a win on our senior night” she said.

Ortiz lives by the words “work hard, play hard” and “take no days off”. Her biggest fears are failure and disappointing her parents. If there is one thing she would like to do before she dies, Jasmine said she would like to “bungee jump and sky dive”. Jasmine adds she would also like to see a Celtics game and meet the team.

Born in Saudi Arabia, her family soon came to America to give their children a better education. Akam’s parents  had moved from Sudan to Saudi Arabia to further their education, then leaving Saudi Arabia to come to America. Akam lived in Philadelphia until she was ten before she came here to Yuma.

As Kofa senior who is ranked number three in her class was recently accepted into New York University at the Shanghai campus in China. She has big plans for her future, and the first step is Shanghai. Akam applied to seven other major universities ranging from MIT to Harvard and she picked NYU as a back up school, after seven rejections, she finally received an acceptance letter  from NYU: Shanghai, but not without some doubt.Before she received an official acceptance letter, she received an email from the university just saying to join the Facebook page for the class of 2017, from shanghai. This caused widespread happiness for Akam and her family, but the email didn’t even have her name in it, soon she began to worry that it was a mistake, a whole week went by before the official letter came in and relief was hers. Shanghai’s campus is very precise when they choose students to attend the university, which they  only picks 150 students each year.”Shanghai caters to each individual person, the people they pick are specific people, like they don’t pick people with the top grades, but by what the bring,” said Akam.  When Akam realized she had been accepted in at NYU’s campus in Shanghai with a 45,000 dollar scholarship, she knew where she was going..

Even though she did not get into the school of her dreams, she soon realized NYU was the school of her dreams. Though she had full ride scholarships to all the in state universities Akam took the risk and picked China. “ I am looking forward to the next four years, because its the real life,” said Akam. Akam’s advice to future seniors who will be applying for colleges in the fall is, “Don’t try and limit your education to just in state, because you can end up with a scholarship (to out of state university) or in a different country,” said Akam.

In August  Akam will be moving from her small town of Yuma,AZ to the bustling city of Shanghai, China. She plans on learning Mandarin and immersing herself into the Chinese culture. She wants to become more fluent in Arabic, and Mandarin, because her dream job would be an International Diplomat. “Uniting all three major powers, American, Arabic, and Chinese, I could be an outlet to build relationships with these three countries.” said Akam. She hopes that her time in Shanghai will open her options of traveling  the whole Asian continent. She also plans on traveling back to the more liberal Middle Eastern countries where her family is originally from from.

        Even top ten can catch “seniorits” according to Akam, “it’s such a struggle to come to school, I know I have to be at school, but after I got my applications in and got accepted, I’m coasting at this point,” said Akam. Being at school has really paid off for Akam, receiving  a full ride scholarship to NYU Shanghai that is renewable each year. Other than school all of Akam’s previous activities are all within school. She has held positions in most of the clubs she has participated in . Freshman year she was the treasurer for the art club and her junior year she was the president of robotics and the community head of communication in Junior Statesmen of America (JSA).  When asked about her place here at Kofa she responded with just “The lines are blurred here,” said Akam to the stereotypical classifications of high school, “But I would label myself as a geek or a nerd,” said Akam.

With graduation right around the corner for Akam she feels, “it’s bittersweet, but I feel like I’ve done the high school experience,” said Akam. Her high school years went by quick but her memorable one has been her senior year. The best part of her senior year was when she told her counselors and teachers she had gotten accepted into NYU, “They believed in me, and were happy for me,” said Akam.  Only a year ago Akam realized how close to growing up she was, one day it just hit her, “I stopped and realized, Whoa I am seventeen, but in relative terms seventeen is a big number, but in reality it is not,” said Akam. When asked how she felt in that moment she simply replied, “It’s humbling.”

Hickman was born on January 3, 1998 in Dayton, Ohio. She came to Yuma, Arizona to meet and get to know her great grandmother, Delores, for the first time. “It felt really good to meet her, she is part of the building block for our family, so I felt like I found home,” said Hickman. “I am also happy that I came here and enrolled at Kofa because I would have never met my best friend, Lani Martinez! We bring out the crazy in each other and she influences me to remember that ‘YOLO’ is not the way to live,” said Hickman. Hafeeza does not plan on graduating from Kofa because she is going back to her hometown after the school year ends. She is a part of the track team and competes in two events, the 100 meter hurdles and the 200 meter dash. “I usually placed third when it came to the 200 meter sprints, but I am undefeated for the hurdle event and I won the title of Region Champion,” said Hickman. On April 20, 2013, she competed in the Cross Fit Challenge. It is a series of high intensity workouts in which she placed second. “It was super hard!” said Hickman. When Hafeeza was just two years old her mother, Luciana, put her in gymnastics. She attends championships every year and participates in four events: bars, beam, floor, and vault. December 2011 was the first time she won a Championship title for bars. “I felt accomplished because it is my favorite event and relieved to know that when I went back to practice I would not get in trouble,” said Hickman.

Being an athlete has influenced Hafeeza to pursue a career as an athletic trainer. Her grades are important because her mother always told her that if she was not performing academically well, then she could not practice with sports. She has committed to do her studies at the University of Florida after doing some research on universities that obtain the curriculum suitable for her career. “Another reason that influenced my decision to  attend this university is that they are number one for college gymnastics; and the state is really pretty so that is a plus,” said Hickman. In ten years, Hafeeza sees herself working to earn a PhD. “Since it is a high level of education, you are given more respect as a person with a medical abbreviation next to your name,” said Hickman. Though she is undecided on whom to evaluate and treat, she plans on becoming famous and well known in her career. “Since Beyoncé and Kim Kardashian are starting to have children and are expecting to gain their bodies back, I would love to work with them. Working with Kevin Durant or the Cincinnati Bengals would be great too!” said Hickman.

Hafeeza is easily inspired by her community and is not ashamed to show off her talents. “I love when people compliment me and give me encouragement to continue the doing the things I enjoy,” said Hickman. She lives by the quote “Go Hard, or Go Home” because she never does anything subtle. Even though she does not play tennis, Serena Williams is her role model. “Serena has huge muscles, she is pretty, and is a successful black woman,” said Hickman. Being African American, Hafeeza has been told she is from Africa. This, along with repeated racist jokes, can offend her sometimes and are in her list of pet peeves. “I want to visit the country of Africa to see what it is like and where my heritage originates,” said Hickman. Aside from all the hurtful jokes, Hafeeza was teased as a kid due to a deformity she was born with. She had a cleft lip, but regained some of the confidence she lost when she had surgery in June of 2012. “The surgery is extremely memorable because my confidence is no longer affected by my appearance, it is all revolved on what I am capable of,” said Hickman.

Everyone dreams of having superpowers, Hafeeza’s would be teleportation. “I believe that it is possible and I would choose to do it because I do not have my license. My superhero name to go along with my power would have to be, Feeze Master!” said Hickman. With all the power in the world, nothing could cover up her greatest fear. “Losing my mother would be the hardest and most frightening thing I could possibly go through. She has been there for me and my younger brother through all our obstacles without much cooperation from my father. Without her, I would instantly have to adapt to motherly instincts to take care of my brother and I do not want to experience such a situation,” said Hickman.