By Dan Murphy
Yonkers Rising has featured many valedictorians and salutatorians throughout the years that have overcome great challenges to reach the number one and two academic ranks. The valedictorian and salutatorian from Lincoln High School have both overcome the challenges of coming to America, and to Yonkers.
LHS Valedictorian Anjali John will graduate with a 95.91 grade-point average. Anjali and her family moved from India when she was 15. She enrolled as a junior at Lincoln in 2017 and was only thinking about assimilating into her new environment and not about becoming valedictorian.
“I had no idea about my class rank when I moved here from India,” said Anjali. I had a lot of friends in India, and the education system was very good there. I had to adjust and try to meet people and make friends during my junior year. But here at Lincoln High School, I was able to connect with teachers and find friends who care about you. The diversity at Lincoln also helped; there are students from almost every country represented.”
Anjali said her favorite course is chemistry and teacher Dr. Kumari Johal, because “she is like another mother to me, and I like going to her class every day.” English teacher Matica DeBunis is another favorite, because “she is able to make learning interesting and cool.”
Anjali has taken three advanced placement courses and has participated in a summer research program at City College in New York City, and also conducted research on the health of the Hudson River at Lincoln. She applied to 27 colleges and was accepted into 20, including the Rochester Institute of Technology, Fordham, Manhattan, SUNY Buffalo and SUNY New Paltz.
She will be attending Manhattan College in the fall, where she will major in mechanical engineering. Anjala decided on Manhattan because of the financial aid package offered and because it allows her to remain close to her family in Yonkers.
While Anjali plans on graduating with a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Manhattan – one of the region’s best engineering schools – her career goal is something different. “I hope to be a commercial pilot,” she said. “In India we don’t get a chance to travel a lot and women don’t get the opportunity to explore different careers.
“Women can become a nurse or a doctor, and my mother and my sister are both nurses. I wanted to do something different, but also to graduate college with a degree that gave me options.”
Anjali credited her family with helping her succeed. “My family all worked hard to get adjusted and come to this country,” she said. “They always had time for me to help me get through any challenges, and my teachers at Lincoln have been amazing. They were willing to stay for hours after school with me when I needed it.”
Her advice for younger students includes: “Work hard and put in your best effort so you have no regrets.”
LHS Salutatorian Brian Garcia-Hernandez was born in the U.S. but moved to Mexico with his mother when he was young. He returned to the U.S. with his father when he was 7 and in the third grade.
Brian lived with his dad in Port Chester and White Plains before moving to Yonkers in the eighth grade. Despite attending 11 different schools throughout his academic career in Westchester, Brian has always been at the top of his class in every grade level.
He will graduate with a 95.75 GPA. Brian said his favorite teachers and subjects at Lincoln are chemistry with Dr. Johal and math with Mr. Matos, because both classes “are complex and challenging, but both teachers were able to help me through it. The way they taught it was interesting and passionate,” he said.
Brian took five AP course at Lincoln and volunteers at his church in White Plains, The Westchester Church of Christ, where he is a member of Walking Believers. He also volunteers in Lincoln’s Youth to Youth program, which educates students about drug and alcohol abuse, and is a member of the LHS Gateway program, where he enjoys playing chess. Brian also completed a summer internship with a pharmaceutical company through a mentoring program.
Brian applied to 20 colleges and was accepted to almost all of them, notably the University of Michigan, SUNY Binghamton, the University of Rochester, U Mass and the University of Colorado. He will be attending the U of R in the fall to study chemical engineering. “It is a nice campus and they have a good reputation for my major and most of the costs are paid for,” he said.
Brian said he hopes to become an engineer or a chemist, and one day become a chemistry teacher “so I can teach students like my teachers here at Lincoln, and help students get through their regents’ exams.” He also said he wants to be a writer and has a novel already in mind about a father-son relationship.
Brian thanked his father for helping him achieve academic greatness. “He taught me to be responsible and organized at a young age and I am grateful for that,” he said.
He also thanked the teachers at LHS “for putting the needs of the students first and for making sure we were learning and prepared.”
His advice for young students is: “Hard work pays off, with a little bit of patience.”
Brian was the number-one ranked student at Lincoln for his first three years in high school, and was narrowly defeated for the top spot in his senior year. “And then my friend Anjala came in,” Brian joked. “But she deserved it.”
Congratulations to both Anjali and Brian.
