Community Corner
Whiz Kid Abbi Walsh: Mature, Self-Confident
She's the daughter every parent hopes for.
- Name: Abbi Walsh, 15
- School/Church: Parkland High School, 11th grade; Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Egypt (Whitehall)
- Greatest Accomplishment: Abbi considers getting good grades and being involved in a lot of activities as her greatest accomplishment. In addition to maintaining a near-4.0 grade point average, Abbi is active with her church youth group, which volunteers with area soup kitchens, and is a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. She swims the 100-meter butterfly, and 50- and 100-meter freestyle for Parkland’s District 11 Champion girls’ swim team, and during the summer works is a lifeguard at the Catasauqua pool. At Parkland, she is a member of the Key Club and the Pals Club, an organization that works with special-needs children and the Special Olympics. This year, Abbi will assume the role of co-president of the Red Cross Club, and as a sophomore organized and hosted a successful blood drive at the high school. For the past four years, she’s been a member of the Lehigh Valley Mall Teen Board, which oversees youth events, presents fashion shows and works with seasonal promotions such as the Santa Claus and Easter Bunny displays. She hopes to be elected to the National Honor Society and French Honor Society this year at Parkland, and her plans are to become a special education teacher or a psychologist. Although she hasn’t determined where she will attend college, she confides that Tampa University is her “dream school.”
- But even though Abbi may think these accomplishments are her greatest, others count the fact that she was elected to the board of directors for the local chapter of the American Red Cross when she was a sophomore at Parkland to be quite a feather in her cap. “Abbi is every parent’s dream daughter,” says Janice Osborne, director of communications and marketing for the American Red Cross of the Greater Lehigh Valley. “She is a lovely, lovely young lady. It’s rare that we select a youth board member at the sophomore level, but she had the maturity and leadership skills that we were looking for. She is a true community servant.”
- Key to Awesomeness: Abbi says the key to her awesomeness is having God in her life, and not letting people get to her. “Don’t take what people say personally,” she says. “Who you are is who you are. They can’t change that.”
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