Cheney High School:

Cheney High School senior and valedictorian Callie Potter has lived around the world, experiences that have ignited her love of language.

Potter was born in Pennsylvania but also spent several years living in Thailand, where her father was a teacher. She moved to Cheney in the third grade, and Potter still loves the idea of traveling and learning other languages. She’s in her fourth year of Spanish classes and is considering a career in linguistics.

“I just think language is really cool,” she said. “It’s just crazy to me that we can communicate in so many different ways.”

Potter wants to travel as an adult and said she believes that if she does, she should know at least a little bit of the language spoken where she’s visiting. She is currently considering what language she wants to start learning next.

Potter’s family came to Cheney after her father got a job teaching at Eastern Washington University. She’s kept busy in school, joining Key Club and High School Health Helpers. She’s also been a class officer since her sophomore year. Among her favorite activities, however, is running. She’s done cross country and the 800- and 1,600-meter races in track for four years.

“You get to be outside,” she said of running. “You can do it with your friends or you can do it by yourself, just a chance to get away from everything.”

Though on the surface Potter has lived the life of a typical high-achieving high school student, she suffered a major blow on her journey. Her mother was diagnosed with a type of melanoma that spread to her brain, and she died during Potter’s sophomore year.

Potter said she struggled to keep going at times. “Sometimes school was a good distraction and sometimes school took a lot of energy,” she said.

Now that her three older sisters have left home, it’s just Potter and her father . Sometimes the quiet is hard to get used to. “My older sisters were quite talkative, so it’s different,” she said.

School counselor Tyler Neely describes Potter as resilient in addition to being very kind. “She’s had to face things in high school that have been extremely difficult,” he said.

She has also excelled in academics because she works hard and isn’t afraid to challenge herself, Neely said. “She just has a willingness to want to learn,” he said.

Potter knows she wants to attend a liberal arts college. While she is considering a focus on linguistics, she wants to explore her options. “I know a lot of people change their majors, so I’m not trying to be set in stone,” she said.

She also hasn’t yet committed to a specific college. “I applied to a lot,” she said. “Now I’m narrowing it down.”