PEABODY — Ending high school at the top of your class is no easy feat. It takes years of hard work filled with late nights of studying and plenty of advanced classes. Peabody’s 2020 valedictorian Rebecca Truong knows the experience first-hand.
“It’s definitely been a long four years,” Truong said. “And I’m really proud to be valedictorian. I take a lot of pride in saying that I worked hard enough to do it because my peers worked hard too. There were times that I wasn’t sure if it would happen because I know how hard other students work.”
After starting her freshman year, Truong steadily built an impressive course on her way to earning the top honor.
“I started with one AP (advanced placement) class my freshman year and gradually built on that,” Truong said. “I actually added another extra one this year because one of my teachers had recommended it.”
Like her classmates, Truong didn’t get to finish all of those courses in the classroom due to the coronavirus pandemic. The cancellation of the rest of the school year might not have affected many of her extracurricular activities, but it still robbed her of memories she looked forward to, including graduation, which was to have taken place June 5.
“It was actually heartbreaking to find out,” Truong said. “And I’m not one who is involved in a lot of activities outside of school either that got canceled. But having graduation get canceled, that’s one of those memories I always thought was guaranteed.”
But, like many students around the country, Truong has also been able to take away some life lessons from the rough ending to her senior year.
“I’m really sad just like everyone else,” Truong said. “But at the same time it’s given me a chance to grow up. It’s a lesson going forward that you can’t expect everything to go right and you have to appreciate what you have in the moment.”
That’s a lesson Truong can carry into college where she will study Chemistry at Georgetown University.
“I was looking at a lot of research based schools to attend,” Truong said. “I wanted to be in a city where I had plenty of opportunities and experiences to have. Georgetown was actually mentioned to me by someone else and I decided to give it a go. They had a lot of people there with different experiences and backgrounds so I feel like it’s a good fit.”
The Tanners are still holding out hope for some kind of graduation celebration or ceremony in August, but that’s obviously still up in the air. Normally, Truong would be able to address her fellow students and, while that chance may not become possible, she says her message would have been a positive one.
“Overall I would just talk about the life-changing moments we’ve had, including what’s happening now,” Truong said. “I’d want to say that everything gets better eventually. It’s a unique situation we’re in, but we’ll be fine.”
