Students at any school are given a choice to either be fully engaged and active in their school environment or too just show up and leave after the day is done. Junior Jackson Petty has chosen to be productive with the school time he has.

Petty has been roaming the halls of Timberland for three years, and participates in multiple school activities including NHS, link crew, gateway to change, ACT counts, football and track. Petty said, in order for this to be possible, the school has to do what it does best: teach.

“School helps me, because on a daily basis I am socializing with others, I’m learning how to communicate more effectively and learning how to fix problems that might be harder than they would be in everyday life,” Petty said.

 Petty’s positive outlook on school and activities seems to rub off on people around him, including English teacher April Smith, link crew leader to Petty, and math teacher Ed Gilreath, Petty’s football coach.

“He’s willing to work hard and get better. If he struggles with something, he tries to find a way he can improve so he can succeed at it,” Gilreath said.

As part of Link Crew, Petty assists in a freshman AI class. 

“He’s such a natural leader that [the freshmen] automatically look up to him. He is just really great at getting freshmen involved; he’s a really good role model for them,” Smith said.

Jackson plans on studying to become an engineer at Michigan University or MIT after high school.