Many of her fellow students depended on that safe space, she says, especially because many were reluctant to discuss their struggles at home. So while you’re out here trying to help the world, make sure you also help yourself,” Ji’raa Alston said. “We were trying to make sure that everybody understood, you can go out and advocate, but you also have to make sure that you stay up-to-date with your own mental health and make sure you take care of yourself. Between meetings, the teens supported each other through frequent text messages. The club’s virtual meetings became a safe space, not just to discuss the protests, but for students to talk about the anxiety, stress and isolation they were feeling. The organization aims to promote a love of learning and to advocate for marginalized students. Neka Alston poses with her children Jonah, left, and Ji’raa, right, in a photo taken for the nonprofit that Neka Alston established, the Beyond Now Foundation,. that for me, that’s the safe space for me, and just being able to be around people who look like me and understand my experience.” “Then I think about our African American Student Association. I might not always have somebody who looks like me in my class,” Ji’raa Alston said, explaining that being the only Black student in class can get uncomfortable. “I’ve always gone to predominantly white schools for as long as I can remember. At the same time, she served on the school’s Equity Team. She joined the Apex Youth Leadership Club and the African American Students Association, becoming vice president of the latter group in her senior year. When the family returned to the Triangle in 2019, before Ji’raa Alston’s junior year, clubs helped her make friends at Apex High School. During her sophomore year in the Charlotte area, her first job provided a confidence boost. In her freshman year at Apex Friendship, playing JV basketball helped. Jonathan Alston, Ji’raa’s father, played as an offensive lineman for the Cologne Centurians. Ji’raa Alston sits in a football stadium in Cologne, Germany, before the game begins. His mom was diagnosed with COVID while she was pregnant, even needing to be intubated for a time before recovering. Like most of his peers, the COVID-19 pandemic presented challenges during the end of his junior and much of his senior year, and his family was directly impacted. He recently became a big brother for the second time when his mom had a baby boy last year. His mom and her husband aren’t too far away, in the southern part of the state. “He is funny and witty, genuine – a good soul who cares about others,” he said.īorn in Santa Monica, Calif., Larmour moved with his family to Cary before kindergarten and lives with his dad and his younger sister. “He appreciates the challenge of engaging in rigorous thought processes such as proof.”īut it’s not all academic with Larmour, Banyas says. “Clancy is generally more curious than his peers,” Banyas said. “My project aimed to see if oyster mushrooms could grow in the soil and help fix the soil,” he said.Ĭary High teacher James Banyas, noted Larmour’s research outcomes were well above expectations. Larmour learned that when big wildfires burn manmade structures that aren’t meant to burn, they can leave toxins in the soil. His research, as one might guess, focused on mushrooms. Members of Cary High’s FFA group attend the 2019 FFA Convention at the Raleigh Convention Center. “There’s all of these steps to cooking and making what I want to eat – you put in the work but then, just being able to eat it and enjoy it.” “I love the catharsis of cooking,” he said. His mom is of Thai descent, and he remembers, from a very young age, wanting to cook like her. They’re also great in recipes, though his love of cooking precedes his love of mushrooms. “At the same time, they’re very enigmatic.” “They’re sort of omnipresent – there’s yeast and other microbes in the air. So why mushrooms? Larmour says they’re everywhere and yet there’s mystery to them, noting there’s still a lot to learn about how they grow. But there’s always another avenue to go down, if you don’t find the right thing at first.” “I hit it on the first try – I got involved with (agriculture) and discovered my love of mushrooms. “You can experiment with what you like and don’t like. “The breadth of things you can do at Cary High was probably most impactful for me,” he said. He found these passions at Cary High, and gives credit to the school and its Career and Technical Education (CTE) program. And he was part of Cary High’s Culinary Arts competition team. He makes Japanese street food to kick back and relax. Clancy Larmour serves food at a fundraiser for the N.C.
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