Photo Credit: Carley Overman[/caption]"Don't be scared, get involved,” 17-year-old Amanda Tavares wants to say to her freshman self. She was born in New York with one younger brother and one older brother. She moved to Hillsborough when she was five. Tavares is now a senior with many responsibilities and dreams.
She has been playing soccer for four years, and she is also a Link Crew member. Not only is she photo editor for the school newspaper, but she is also the copy editor for the yearbook. Typically, copy editing involves correcting spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc, so she spends a lot of her time editing other people’s words.
Just like the average senior, Tavares is ready to graduate and get out of high school. She hopes to attend the University of South Carolina in June. Her goal is to become a pediatric nurse. Tavares works well with others and makes many new friends in the process.
Mangum has already had experience working with children. “I babysit a lot.” She takes care of her six-year-old brother and a five-year-old child. Ideally, she would like to work with elementary school-age children in the future.
She is already taking two classes at OHS, a teen living and a child development class, to prepare her for her career. Mangum is planning to have children of her own, but she wants to wait until after she is through with high school and most of college. She would like to start having children when she is 20 to 24 years old.
During the summer, Mangum spent her time away from OHS playing baseball with her father and shopping with her mother. Her father, George, plays on a local team, the Destroyers, in his spare time. She also went to Myrtle Beach, where she swam in the ocean and walked on the beach shore.
Mangum feels “good” about her second semester of journalism. “I feel good because I’ve taken it one time.” She is taking the class again because “I like finding out information… Everybody would have their different story if the truth didn’t come out.”