By Robert Carter

The North Jefferson News



Courtney Phares loves the theater. But she doesn’t like being in front of people.

“I like the technical stuff, like stage managing,” Phares said. “I’m not too big into being in the spotlight. I’m not really wanting that sort of thing.”

Phares, who just turned 18, will graduate at the top of her class at Corner High School during ceremonies Thursday night at the school’s football stadium.

Phares, who is the daughter of Terry and Kriss Phares, prefers competition of the mind to that of the athletic field.

“I read a lot, and I’m the captain of the academic team,” she said. “It’s a type of quiz bowl, with the buzzers and all that. We did fairly well as a team. We had a lot of meets and won a bunch of them.”

Like a lot of sports players and coaches, she has suffered through the nerve-racking experience of sudden-death overtime.

“We had this one match back in late fall, where it was the last round of the day, and we were tied,” she said. “We were so tired that no one was answering the overtime questions. Finally we got one question that me and a teammate both knew, and we woke up and buzzed in at the same time.”

As with many academic team members, Phares is a fan of television game shows.

“I like ‘Jeopardy!’ a lot, but I also like ‘Wheel of Fortune,’” she said. “I watch Wheel with my mom — she always gets the answers way before the contestants. But ‘Jeopardy!’ is my favorite.”

She also competes in the Science Olympiad, a series of competitions with a scientific bent.

Her fondest memory at Corner was a theater production of “The Last Christmas Ride,” based on a story by local resident Edie Hand and adapted for the stage by the school’s theater teacher, Mike Putnam.

“You hang out together at theater, and you really get to know everyone — it’s almost like family,” she said.

Phares will enter Samford University this fall. She hasn’t decided on a major yet, but her first inclination is toward bio-chemistry — “if not that, some other kind of science with an ‘artsy’ minor,” she said.

As for life beyond college, “it’s hard to say right now. I have way to many interests to narrow it down just yet,” she said.

As the top honors graduate at Corner (the school’s equivalent of a valedictorian), Phares finished her high school career with a grade-point average of 4.26 on an adjusted four-point scale.

She and her family attend Westwood Baptist Church in Forestdale.