June 2, 2004


Willow Glen High selects Nathan Tom as valedictorian

By Carol Rosen
Editor

Willow Glen High School selected Nathan Tom as valedictorian of its 2004 class. The senior, who plans to attend U.C. Berkeley in the fall, worked hard to achieve his 4.0 grade point average with nothing lower than an A throughout his high school career.

But all his work didn’t stop there. Nate was president of the student body his senior year and also served as the activities commissioner as a junior and a justice as a freshman. He acted in the school’s recent musical, “Anything Goes,” where he played three parts—Fred the bartender, Henry T. Dobson the minister and a sailor. He also ran varsity cross country as a freshman, spent four years playing on the varsity soccer team and two years in junior varsity volleyball with a year in varsity volleyball.

The enterprising young man plans to major in mechanical engineering. “I’d like to be in customer service and work with big investors or purchasers and help them when they buy their equipment. I want the person-to-person interaction. I enjoy working with other people,” he said.

This summer he has “an internship with Coke. I will drive to the stores, restock the shelves, set up displays and make sure everything is the way it’s supposed to be,” he said. He also plans to spend as much time as possible with his friends, because come August, everyone is going to different colleges. “I want to spend time with them before we all move on,” he said.

Nate’s favorite subject in high school is math. “I really like problem solving and math is straight forward, it’s either right or wrong, not open to interpretation like English.”

He got his straight As through hard work and a lot of extra effort, he says, and some pressure. In order to stay in sports and other programs his parents insisted he get nothing lower than an A.

His mom, Denise Tom, has a different take on it. She noted that Nate has a lot of self discipline. “He’s taken it upon himself to do the best he can, As a child, once he was told ‘no’ he never did it again,” she said.

She also talked about his community service. This year he spent one day each weekend for five months working with middle school youngsters. He then understood the responsibilities associated with children. “He said he wanted to do this, but he felt the responsibilities because he had to make sure the kids were OK even when he just went out of the room for a short time,” she added.

Congratulations to Nate Tom and good luck at Berkeley!