Yamamoto grew up in Lakewood with her parents, Kaz and Phoebe, and her older brother Michael, a 2007 graduate of CWA. Sarah became a Lifer at Charles Wright, entering the school in Kindergarten. She excelled in every academic discipline and many of her teachers found themselves discussing the subtleties of scholarship with her more as a colleague than as a student. Yamamoto, however, consistently valued depth over breath. Rather than joining every activity she was good at, she chose to really commit her time and energy to a select group of interests.

Music became one of her first passions and soon a major commitment. She began studying the piano then switched to the cello. “The piano is too often a solo instrument and I like how playing the cello generally involves more group work,” she says. “It’s very interactive.” She particularly enjoys playing chamber music in a small ensemble. She played with the school orchestra for five years before a scheduling conflict prompted her to move to the band her senior year. There isn’t much music written for band and cello, so she often improvises by playing the tuba or baritone score.

“I love how playing music allows me to connect with my classmates on a different level than in the classroom,” says Yamamoto. “It’s the same philosophy as school athletics or outdoor ed. You see a different dimension of people playing music together. You establish camaraderie. It becomes much easier to come to common ground in any other discussion.”

She has performed at Carnegie Hall with the American High School Honors Orchestra and is the co-principal cellist of the Tacoma Youth Symphony. She’s been part of the pit orchestra for several plays at Charles Wright and plays in a string quartet with classmates Anthony Wohns, Tim Chang and Jay Um. Outside of Charles Wright, she’s also a member of a quartet composed of friends from the Tacoma Youth Symphony. She has competed in the Solo and Ensemble competition and has been selected to play with several all-state orchestras.

Yamamoto completed Charles Wright’s most rigorous course offerings in math and science, but her real passion is the study of human languages, a field called linguistics. The groundwork for that study is laid in high school through such courses as English, world languages (Yamamoto studied Japanese and went to Japan on a Winterim trip), and history. Yamamoto has taken them all.

“I’m very fond of English class. In both writing and studying literature, there is always something more to do. English has always been a place where there’s been an opportunity for me to go further and challenge myself,” says Yamamoto. As a sophomore and junior, the English faculty honored her work ethic and achievement with awards for writing, research and scholarship.

“I’m really interested in the underlying structures of languages. I’m interested in how computer science can be used to study grammar and to develop translation technologies. I also think invented languages are fascinating,” says Yamamoto. “The idea of developing a universal language that would unite the world is both philosophically and technically interesting.”

Yamamoto has found opportunities to explore her interest in linguistics by founding a Linguistics Society on campus and introducing her peers to the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad. She also joined the Linguistic Society of America and celebrated her 18th birthday by driving to Portland to attend the LSA’s annual meeting. “It’s incredibly nerdy, but I absolutely loved it,” she says.

Community service has also been an important part of her high school experience. She joined Wohns to raise money for Japanese tsunami relief, worked with the Boys and Girls Club, helped run Middle School Knowledge Bowl competitions, and sorted donations for the Toy Rescue Mission. This year, the Tacoma Youth Symphony Association recognized Yamamoto as their Student Volunteer of Note. She particularly enjoyed her Winterim experience working with World Relief Seattle, a nonprofit that provides English as a Second Language classes and other social services. It was a service project that matched up beautifully with her interest in linguistics.

Yamamoto began going on college tours in fifth grade, tagging along with her older brother as he researched schools. “I was intrigued, but it all felt really distant,” she recalls. “When it came time to start my own search, however, I felt like I had a head start. I did not go on too many tours myself, which I sort of regret.”

One school she did make sure to visit was Columbia. For years it was her dream school. Both of her parents studied there and she visited with Michael and again her junior year. “I loved it there, but Columbia doesn’t offer a major in linguistics. I thought about studying something else and returning to linguistics in graduate school. It was really hard for me to step back and see that it just doesn’t make sense for what I’m interested in, as much as I loved the campus and the idea of living in New York.”

Yamamoto decided what was really important to her was to study at a research university with ample funding for undergraduate research and to live in an urban area where she could participate in and attend a lot of arts events.

As she explored schools with linguistics majors, Yamamoto kept finding that the best sources of information on the field and the most exciting new research are all coming from Stanford.

“Ms. Ryan told me about Stanford’s Symbolic Systems Program. It’s an interdisciplinary project blending computer science, neuroscience, psychology, humanities and the sciences. The more I researched programs, the more I realized that Stanford is where most of the groundbreaking work in computational linguistics is really happening. The programs on the East Coast are rooted in history and anthropology and that’s not my real area of interest.”

Life in California, however, would be very different than the life Yamamoto imagined for herself in New York. No Broadway. No Carnegie Hall. It was something she really needed to think about before she was ready to commit.

“I wasn’t particularly looking for summer school options last summer, but when I came across an opportunity to study at Stanford for the summer, it felt like a great match,” she says. “I was really hesitant to give up the chance to participate in the Tacoma Youth Symphony’s summer camp, but I discovered that I could take college courses alongside undergrads, live on campus, and play in the Stanford orchestra. Being on campus helped me decide that Stanford would be my top choice. It was by far my longest college tour.”

During her eight-week stay, Yamamoto took courses in literature and cognitive psychology. She also played with the orchestra and took a tennis class. On the tennis courts she met Jieun Oh, a 2004 Charles Wright graduate who is now a PhD candidate at Stanford working in the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, a multi-disciplinary facility where composers and researchers work together using computer-based technology both as an artistic medium and as a research tool. Oh’s PhD research is on the sound of human laughter.

With shared interests in music and interdisciplinary research, not to mention their shared history at Charles Wright, the two found much to discuss. “Jieun gave me a tour of her lab and also told me about the laptop computer and cell phone orchestras she’s a member of at Stanford. The more I learned, the more I got excited about Stanford.”

As she finalized her list of schools, Stanford made its way to the top. Her interest in the school proved far more than academic. “Stanford is building a new concert hall that will open in January 2013 and Yo-Yo Ma is scheduled to perform in the opening season. I’ve never seen him play, so I’m really looking forward to that. I also hope to play there myself with the orchestra and chamber ensembles. I did some fencing in middle school and I was excited to find they have a club program there. They also have a Japanese Taiko drumming ensemble that I plan to join.”

Yamamoto decided to submit her application in the fall. “After the summer, I knew I would be happy there, but I was also sure that it’s not the one and only school where I could be happy. Since the decision is non-binding, there didn’t seem to be any reason not to apply early action. And if I was accepted, I could save myself the trouble of applying to other schools.”

Stanford posted its decisions online the Friday before finals at Charles Wright. “I went outside to check on my phone and I totally panicked when I turned on my phone and didn’t immediately have an email. Then I realized it was just going to take a few minutes for my phone to load emails so I raced up to the computer lab. I knew there wouldn’t be many people there after school and I really wanted to find out as soon as possible. I was so excited when I saw I was accepted that I came running down the stairs and through the Upper School yelling about it. Mr. Dempsey called back, “Congratulations! You still can’t run in the halls, though.”

For Yamamoto, one of the best parts of the experience was sharing the news with teachers in the Lower and Middle Schools whom she has known for years. “There’s something really special about having attended this school for 13 years,” she says. “I’m so glad I’ve stayed close with many of my teachers.”

Gone are the days when students waited anxiously between the day they were accepted and the day they moved onto campus, wondering who their classmates would be and whether they would make friends. Stanford, like most schools, has a Facebook Group for the Class of 2016 and Yamamoto is already getting to know her future classmates.

“People are very active on there, which can be really distracting,” she admits. “It’s exciting to see their energy and how quickly they make things happen. For example, a group of students not only took it upon themselves to design a t-shirt for the Class of 2016, but also had the thoroughness to organize online ordering and convenient distribution. It’s certainly a community of doers.” She’s also looking forward to signing up for Stanford’s pre-orientation outdoor ed program and is grateful that beach hike and sophomore outdoor ed have prepared her for that experience.

Of course, she still has a few months left of high school and wants to get the most out of that experience too. “I went to Italy for Winterim and I’ve been talking to our hosts and the other people on that trip about setting up a return trip,” she says.

Her advice to future applicants: “Don’t change who you are to mold yourself to a particular college. As you’re looking at schools, go deeper than the “quick facts” on the website. Look at course catalogues and map out what classes you might take. Read the student newspaper and find out what issues the students are talking about. That’s going to give you a better idea of what it’s going to be like once you’re actually there.”

Editor’s note: This story is the first 2011-2012 entry in Charles Wright’s College Choices blog series. Please check back soon for more stories or to read the 34 stories from the classes of 2010 and 2011.

When it came to choosing a short list of colleges, Anthony Wohns took a step back. He thought carefully about the experience he hopes to have for the next four years and the doors his college education will open in the future. He chose Harvard as his top choice because of the sense of belonging he felt among Harvard students and the strengths of academic programs in his areas of interest.

In the fall of his junior year, Wohns attended the Harvard National Model UN Conference with his Charles Wright classmates. He spent an evening with his cousin, a Harvard sophomore. They hung out in his dorm, casually chatting with other students. “Everyone I met that night was so intellectually motivated, they didn’t care that I was a high school student. If you have something interesting to say, they wanted to hear it,” recalls Wohns. “That’s when I knew Harvard was my top choice. Going there became the dream for me.”

Wohns grew up in Browns Point, the youngest of Richard Wohns and Marie Lauritano’s four children. Anthony became a Tarrier in third grade and followed in the footsteps of Michi ’98, Sage ’01 and Nicolai ’03.

Wohns began his college search much earlier than most students. He began visiting colleges when he was in Lower School, tagging along to visit schools with his older siblings. Throughout his Upper School years, his family made a point of visiting schools during family trips. “Visiting a number of campuses really helped me figure out what sort of school I wanted to attend. I decided I wanted a research institution of moderate size on the East Coast with many opportunities, resources, and strong programs in history, computer science, and Japanese.”

To fully explore these three areas of academic interest, Wohns sought opportunities inside and outside the classroom. For example, Wohns took four history classes with John Lemma including AP US history and an independent study. Throughout Upper School, Wohns participated in Model UN and Knowledge Bowl, both sponsored by the history and social sciences department. Wohns’ interest in computer science links the fields of math, science, and engineering. He took the most rigorous science and math courses Charles Wright offers. Last summer he combined all these interests as he conducted research in the neuroengineering lab at the University of Washington.

Wohns was exposed to Japanese traditions and culture by his mother and grandmother and began studying the language in sixth grade at Charles Wright. While in Upper School, he spent two summers in Japan. His first immersion experience living with a family in Tokyo was made possible by a scholarship from Youth for Understanding, an opportunity that his teacher, Stephanie Glenn, encouraged him to pursue. The next summer he spent two weeks working on an organic farm on the Island of Hokkaido, then studied Japanese history and language at a university in Tokyo.

Following the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in 2011, Wohns partnered with classmate Sarah Yamamoto to raise more than $8,000 for the Japanese Red Cross. Teachers say that this effort is consistent with Wohns’ character as a quiet, unassuming, deliberative leader who almost always achieves success by working with others, but rarely claims the credit for himself. It has earned him the respect of his classmates as well, for they selected him to serve on the honor board this year.

Wohns’ academic accomplishments have already won him high honors. He is a National Merit Scholarship Finalist and as a junior he received CWA’s Brown University Book Award for English and the Rensselaer Medal for science and mathematics, among other awards. He’s also an athlete and musician.

As a member of the track team, he was voted “most improved athlete” his sophomore year and competed with the 4×400 meter relay team at the state meet his junior year. He also loves travel and outdoors activities. Just before his senior year, Wohns joined English teacher Creighton King and senior Alex Nielsen on his most ambitious trip yet. They made a 93-mile trek around Mount Rainier on the Wonderland Trail in just three days.

Wohns began studying the violin at age four and has played with CWA ensembles since seventh grade. He also began playing the viola in ninth grade and performs in a string quartet, Strings Around the Sound, with Jay Um, Tim Chang and Yamamoto. After five years in the string orchestra, a scheduling conflict pushed him to try the jazz band where he has played the electric violin. This past fall, he won a place in the all-state orchestra. This February he won the regional solo and ensemble competition for solo violin and will compete at the state level in the spring. Outside of school, he has played with the Tacoma Youth Symphony for eight years.

After considerable deliberation and several meetings with Katie Ryan, his college counselor, he chose to apply early action to Harvard and began writing his application during the summer. In December he heard that he had been accepted to Harvard. “It’s a dream come true,” he said.

With one major life decision behind him, Wohns began thinking about his future plans and the challenges ahead. “I’m trying to take it one step at a time,” he says, “but I know I want to study psychology, computer science, history, and Japanese. I also want to learn Russian and explore the fields of economics and international relations.”

Wohns said, “I’m really going to miss driving to school everyday, looking up at Mt. Rainier and the Olympics, knowing that I can go hiking almost every weekend. I’m also going to miss the teachers, staff, and students at Charles Wright. The school has given me amazing opportunities not only in academics, but also in the greater world.”

His advice to students is simple: “Take advantage of all Charles Wright has to offer. Choose challenging courses and work hard at them. Compile your college list, and get your applications done early. Start over the summer and finish before final exams. You don’t want to submit your applications without knowing you did your best work.“

As each candle was lit, Chaplain Mike Moffitt read the following statements in alphabetical order explaining its significance.

Bodhi Day: Buddha statue and candle
This day marks the time when Siddhartha Gautama, a spiritual teacher and founder of Buddhism, positioned himself under a tree and vowed to remain there until he attained supreme enlightenment.  All Buddhist traditions agree that upon the rising of the morning star, he had experienced enlightenment and attained Nirvana.

Chinese New Year: Chinese lanterns
Chinese New Year is an all East and South-East-Asia celebration. In China it is known as “Spring Festival.”  It marks the end of the winter season, and the festival begins on the first day of the first month in the traditional Chinese calendar. It is a reflection on how the people behaved and what they believed in the most.

Christmas: Advent Wreath
Christmas is the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, believed to be the Son of God and Savior of the world.  Christmas traditions vary worldwide, and the day is often celebrated in prayer and song at church services, and gifts are often given to represent the gifts that Jesus received from the three kings, and the gift that Jesus is to the world.

Diwali: Diyas
Diwali gets its name from the row of lamps that Indians light outside their homes to symbolize the inner light that protects us from spiritual darkness.  Diwali originated as a harvest festival that marked the last harvest of the year before winter.  Indians celebrate with family gatherings, glittering clay lamps, festive fireworks, flowers, sharing of sweets, and worship.

Hanukkah: Menorah
Chanukah — the eight-day festival of light — celebrates the triumph of light over darkness.  More than twenty-one centuries ago, a small band of faithful Jews defeated the mighty Syrian-Greek army, which sought to eliminate Jewish religion and culture, and drove the Greeks from the land.  They reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and rededicated it to the service of God.

Japanese New Year: Wreath and candle

New Year is the most important holiday in Japan.  Families typically gather to spend the day together.  Each new year is seen as providing a fresh start. Consequently, all duties are supposed to be completed by the end of the year, while parties are held with the purpose of leaving the old year’s worries and troubles behind.

Kwanzaa: Kinara
Kwanzaa is an African American and Pan-African holiday which celebrates family, community and culture. Celebrated from 26 December thru 1 January, its origins are in the first harvest celebrations of Africa from which it takes its name. The name Kwanzaa is derived from the phrase “matunda ya kwanza” which means “first fruits” in Swahili.  Kwanzaa was established in 1966 in the midst of the Black Freedom Movement and thus reflects its concern for cultural groundedness in thought and practice.

Yule: Candle
Yule marks the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, and celebrates the rebirth of the sun in the Norse pagan tradition.  The modern day, western Yule festival contains a large blend of celebrations, leading back to multiple cultures and religious practices.  Practices include decorating a fir or spruce tree, burning a Yule log, hanging mistletoe and holly branches, and giving gifts.

1.) CWA Beginning School students put on their annual production of the Native American folktale The Rainbow Crow.  The littlest Tarriers took on roles that ranged from forest animals to the Great Sky Spirit.  Check out the trailer for the movie!

2.) Third grade students planted trees in cooperation with the Nisqually tribe as part of their study of the Nisqually Watershed.  The students take a field trip once a month exploring a different part of the Nisqually River from Mt. Rainier down to the Puget Sound.

3.) Second graders learned about the inner workings of a computer on a technology field trip to The Apple Store.  Students also received some instructions on how to use diagnostic tools to assess the “health” of a computer.

4.) Trailer runners!  Lower School students at the end of the weekly “trail run” at the start of Thursday morning recess.  Fun and fitness are always the result as students enjoy the trekking the trail through the woods behind school with CWA faculty.

5.) Zoo fun: First grade students listen to instructions on a recent field trip to Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium.  The students paid particular attention to animals from the desert as they prepared to write desert stories.

1 & 2) CWA Third Grade students on their field trip to Mt. Rainier National Park. As part of their focus on studying the Nisqually Watershed from mountain to Sound, the Third Graders will take a field trip a month studying everything from the salmon life cycle and hydroelectric power to understanding the various ecosystems along the Nisqually River.

2) First grade members of the CWA Chess Club show off their new team t-shirts. Weekly beginning to advanced chess players work with coaches from Chess4Life to improve their chess game. Emphasis is put on improving skills as well as fair play and good sportsmanship.

3) The 3rd/4th Grade CWA football team line up versus Orting. The team consists of CWA students as well as students from local schools interested in learning the game and having fun.

4) Back to pass! The CWA 5th/6th grade team in a recent contest. Athletics continue to play an important role for CWA students as they strive to be their best in mind, body and spirit.

5) Finishing strong! CWA Running Club students ran hard at the last meet of the year. Meeting twice a week through the first part of the school year, teacher and parent volunteer coaches put emphasis on personal improvement and having fun.

1) CWA Kindergarteners ready for the Annual Apple Squeeze!

2) 78 CWA Lower School students ran at the second cross country meet of the year.

3) Hands-on learning: 5th grade students conduct an archaeological dig on campus.

4) First place with second place nowhere in sight!

5) CWA Lower School students hone their chess skills every Wednesday at Chess Club.

Since it’s the first Five Photo Friday of the school year, we’re throwing in a bonus. Lower School artists imaged “whirled peace” on Pinwheels for Peace Day, an international event. The project was part of Ms. Candy’s art class.

Williams applied to 13 schools she thought represented the full continuum. Then, to her tremendous surprise, she was accepted by 12 of those 13 schools. The only trouble with that bit of good fortune was that the full weight of choosing a college then fell on her shoulders and her shoulders alone. She wound up at Dartmouth, the school she originally considered a reach, but with so many options on the table it was not an easy decision.

Williams attended CWA from kindergarten and for all 13 years she was an athlete, musician and leader among her peers. She was one of only two girls in her graduating class who completed 12 seasons of competitive high school athletics. She played volleyball and basketball and sprinted for the track team all through Middle and Upper School, serving as a team captain for all three sports both her junior and senior years.

She won two state championship titles in the 4×100 meter relay (2009 and 2010) and had three second-place finishes at state in the 4×200 (2008, 2009 and 2010). She was a member of the three most successful Tarrier volleyball teams in school history. She played club volleyball for four years outside of school and coached a team of fellow CWA athletes after finishing her senior season. Williams was named the school’s most outstanding female athlete at the end of her senior year and nominated for The News Tribune’s female athlete of the year award.

Athletics were not the only activities keeping her busy. She sang in school choirs all through Upper School and competed her senior year at the state solo and ensemble competition with a quartet. Williams was also a member of the Green Key club and was very involved in community service. She was elected by her peers to be the ASB community service head her senior year. She volunteered as a tutor with Stand Up for Kids, an outreach program for homeless and at-risk youth. She also worked with the school’s Chapel Home, Boys and Girls Clubs, and global outreach programs. She served as the President of the Tacoma chapter of Jack and Jill America, Inc, a youth leadership development organization. Her senior year, Williams became an actress and Brendan Rome cast her in the role of Salome in his one act by the same name.

Academically, Williams also excelled in many areas, especially English, history, Spanish and science. She loved working on her junior research project and wrote an essay about her experience with that English paper for Ties last summer. She credits Creighton King (English), Neil Biermann (science), Howard Wouters (math) and Coaches Rob Scotlan and Mindy McGrath as some of her greatest influences at CWA.

Williams particularly loved her forensics class. “Since the third grade, I have wanted to spend my life investigating the dead to bring answers to the living,” she says. “My passion only deepened when I began taking Mr. Biermann’s forensics science class my senior year. I got hands-on experience with mini investigations so I know this is what I want to spend my life doing. I love not knowing the answers because I love discovering. I love figuring things out for myself and this is still what attracts me to the role of a coroner or medical examiner today. Many might ask whose aspiration it would be to sit with dead people all day… but someone has to do it and it might as well be someone who is genuinely curious and passionate about the matter.”

Perhaps it part because she has so many strengths and interests, the college selection process was hard for Williams. “I had a very long list of colleges, right up until I made my final choice,” she says. “I started with a summer tour of West Coast schools with my parents the summer before my junior year, then took a similar tour of East Coast schools before my senior year. In total I saw almost 30 schools. I looked at every type of college and university because I thought it would at least help me decide what sort of school I did not want to attend.

“I decided that I would probably prefer a smaller school and that I liked the idea of attending school on the East Coast, especially since I think I will probably move back to the West Coast to begin my career. Beyond that, touring schools did not particularly help me narrow down my list. I decide to apply to 13 schools – more than most students do – and just see what happened. I assumed the schools’ decisions would narrow the list considerably. I applied regular-decision to mostly liberal arts schools on the East Coast but I also applied to a few in California and one in Washington.

“Dartmouth was the big reach on my list. It was secretly my number one, but I only told a few people that. I was intimidated by its selectivity – less than 10 percent of applicants get in – so although I knew I wanted to run in college, I didn’t even bother to contact the Dartmouth coach. It seemed like a waste of time because I really didn’t think I was going to get in.”

What Williams most liked about Dartmouth was not the prestige of its Ivy League status, but the feeling she got on campus. “I visited in the summer and it was the only campus that felt alive. There were lots of students there and everyone was studying and laughing and having fun. Everyone was happy. It seemed like they were a bunch of Rachaels.”

The decision letter began arriving in February and one after another brought good news. The first eleven decisions she received were all acceptances. Because she wanted to run for the track team, she found herself leaning toward Colgate and Davidson, confident that she could make either Division I team. She had several conversations with their coaches.

The twelfth decision Williams received was a denial and she consoled herself that getting into eleven of thirteen schools was really pretty good. The Dartmouth decision was schedule for the very same day, so she figured she would check online before telling her parents. To her tremendous surprise, she found she had been accepted. “I ran into the other room and told my dad, then went right upstairs to update my Facebook status and call my best friend,” she recalls. “I decided to surprise my mom when she came home but yeah, I told everyone on Facebook first.”

Once the excitement wore off, Williams faced a difficult decision. She was still feeling a little intimidated by Dartmouth’s academic reputation and she was not sure she could run there. More research was necessary. She emailed the coach who responded: “Your times look like the people I would have talked to (while recruiting). I’ll put you on the summer workout list.”

With the possibility of running on the table, she booked a flight to visit the school a second time. This trip she made solo. “After the last performance of One Acts, I changed my clothes at school and went straight to the airport. I had to be back at CWA on Tuesday so it was a quick trip two-night trip. I mainly listened to what people had to say. I sat in on a Spanish class and I thought the professor was really funny. Apparently a rat had disturbed his last class by running through the classroom and he kept making jokes about the rat.”

Williams spent both nights in the dorms. The first night she stayed with Tori Portnow, a 2010 graduate of CWA. “We talked about the transition and how prepared she felt,” says Williams. “Her answers really pointed me in the right direction. I was concerned about the weather – I thought I was going to freeze to death and I still do, actually – and about the academic rigor. Because we come from the same high school, her comparisons of the programs were really helpful and I gained a lot of confidence from our conversations.”

As a pre-med student, Williams knows her chosen course of study will be challenging. She will likely major in biochemistry or neurology. “Dartmouth has a really strong premed program and the number one student-faculty research program, so if I want to do research as an undergrad, this will definitely be the school to do that,” she says.

Williams also made time to visit with members of the track team. She thought long and hard about what made her a successful student athlete in high school. “I think what makes me successful in the classroom is knowing that I have so much to do that I have to balance and manage my time well. The more free time I have, the less I manage my time well. Athletics provides structure and I make more efficient time of the work time I create for myself. Running in college will help me be a better student and it will provide an emotional release that keeps me well rounded.

“By the end of the visit, I was sure I wanted to attend Dartmouth. For such a serious academic school, Dartmouth students know how to have fun. It feels kind of like Charles Wright, really. There isn’t a person there who doesn’t have pride in the school and I think that’s really important.”

When she arrived home in Tacoma, Williams got online to make decision official and after notifying the admissions office she sent an email to the track coach. Because track is a winter and spring sport, she does not need to report to campus early. She does need to stay healthy and after rehabbing an injury for several months, she’s making that a top priority. Once the big decision was behind her, Williams relaxed and enjoyed the end of her senior year. Her peers selected her as one of three student graduation speakers, an honor she greatly appreciated. “I’m just really going to miss this place and everyone who helped shape me into the person I am today,” she says.

As the name indicates, the objective of this Tower of Defense-style game is fairly straightforward: destroy the broccoli at the end of each level. As the product description advertises: “Drag the missile through the block designs in all almost-impossible 15 levels and destroy the broccoli at the end. There are other vegetables along the way; run into those and get points. Run into the broccoli and get 10,000 points. Use the points to buy multipliers multiply the score you get when running into the small vegetables. You still get 10,000 points from running into broccoli.” The game is rated for users age 4 and up.

Howell describes himself as “not a big fan of vegetables” but says he originally planned to use Justin Bieber’s head as the main target. Once he realized that he could be sued for use of an individual’s image, he turned instead to vegetables. The unlucky broccoli does not have the same legal protections as the young pop star.

Howell has been using a computer for as long as he can remember, certainly well before his first lessons in the Charles Wright computer lab in first grade. He has long been the kid his friends’ parents called upon to fix their computers. He could solve a Rubiks cube puzzle in fourth grade and has been playing in chess tournaments since kindergarten, so he has developed strong critical and analytical thinking skills.

When his dad mentioned that he had built his own arcade games as a youngster, Howell thought it might be fun to try his hand at programming. Neither of his parents writes code, nor does anyone else he knows, so Howell got a few books and some software and starting teaching himself.

“I believe that kids can do most of the stuff that adults can do,” he says nonchalantly, noting that aa nine-year-old from China has published on the App Store and an eighth grader created one of the most successful games sold for the iPhone.

“I started about a year ago with Basic, then JavaScript, then C++,” he explains. “At first I just made the computer count to certain numbers, or created programs that would ask the user a set of questions, but then I got into more advanced graphics. Four or five months ago, I started working on this game for the iPhone, so I had to learn a new language, Objective-C Programming.”

Objective-C is an object-oriented programming language used to create software for Mac operating systems. Charles Wright students with an interest in programming typically learn how to write code as high school students in the Advanced Placement computer science course. Howell also used Adobe Photoshop to create two-dimensional and open-source Blender software to create three-dimensional graphics for the game.

“Making the graphics was the most fun. I played around with a lot of effects to make the vegetables look more realistic,” says Howell. “Typing in the code was kind of boring at times, but the most challenging part was problem solving whenever there was an error. It was hard to find online programming advice so sometimes it took me up to a week to figure out what was wrong.”

All through fifth grade, Howell came home from school, finished his homework, and then got to work on the computer. He found that he often had to wait through long downloads, so he used that time to run outside and play.

All that hard work paid off in July when Howell’s program was accepted by the App Store. “I had to wait for a certificate to publish and for a provision profile and App ID,” he explains. “I converted the game project to a dot-app file, then compressed it to a zip file and uploaded it. It took a month or two to get it up at the App Store. I was at camp the week it went up and every day I went to the camp computer lab to check. I knew it could take years for Apple to check the code, make sure the game works, and verify that the price and rating are appropriate, so I was really excited when I saw my App was finally for sale.”

Howell’s parents supported his entrepreneurial endeavourer and his dad let him use his iPad to test the software, but the project was all Logan’s. “When he first came to us and said he wanted to sell a game on Apple’s App Store, we asked him, ‘Can a kid really do that?’” recalls his mom, Jodi. “He said, ‘Oh yes, I already researched it.’ He took all the initiative.”

Vegetable Blowup now sells for 99 cents. Apple keeps 29 cents of each sale to cover their administrative fee and taxes. Howell gets 70 cents. He is putting 90 percent of his profits into a savings account for college tuition, his first car, or another major investment of which his parents might approve. The other ten percent he can spend now and his top priorities are getting new programming and graphics software.

Howell has his eye on Autodesk’s Maya, high end 3D animation, visual effects and compositing software. The program runs about $4,000 so while he hopes to get it “someday,” he will make some smaller purchases along the way. “I can’t afford most of the stuff adult programmers use to build games,” he says. “They get all fancy with their expensive software. That’s why I decided to sell my game as an app and make money so I can buy better software and make better apps.”

Howell describes his first 24 sales as “average performance for the first week or two out.” He hopes that as people buy and play the game, they will talk to their friends about it and generate more sales. He’s not committing to a career as a computer programmer just yet, but says he’d “like to see how far he can get with it” and if he “hits it big” in the App Store he’ll “stick with it.”

Some of Howell’s friends have shown interest in his programming and he is happy to show others how to get started, but when they realize how hard it is to learn programming languages, most give up. “It’s a really big commitment,” says Howell. “It takes lots of studying.”

The Spring National Championship is one of four major junior tournaments and is played on a clay surface. Schachter entered the event as the #1 seed since he is currently ranked #1 in the nation among boys 12 and under. The tournament starts with 128 boys from all over the U.S.

Schachter played his first two rounds of singles on April 10, advancing to the round of 32. His third round on April 11 was exciting. He lost the first set and was down 0-3 in the second set. Somehow in the 90 degree heat he managed to pull out a comeback and win his third round. The match lasted 3.5 hours.

Though exhausted, Schachter had another tough match the next day in the round of 16. He won the first set 6-4, but fell behind in the second set 2-5. Once again he rallied from behind to pull out a second set win 7-6. He then won the third set making this match last four hours long, the longest match of the tournament, and moving him into the quarterfinals.

In his quarterfinal match, Schachter won the first set 6-5, but wound up losing 5-7, 1-6 to the #15 seed. All the losers in the quarterfinals then battled it out for fifth place. Schachter captured fifth place after winning two more matches.

“I really enjoyed this tournament in Florida because it is on clay and I like to play on clay,” he says. “Having the longest match of the tournament was also good because I came from behind to win that match.”

Schachter began playing tennis at the age of four and was playing in national tournaments by the age of five.  He quickly established himself as a well-known face in the Pacific Northwest Tennis circuit and beyond. He has competed in many national and international tournaments. He also enjoys basketball, soccer and running.