La Salle’s Seven Valedictorians Reflect On Their High School Experience

The valedictorians of the Class of 2017 have made history, being only the second graduating class with seven recipients in La Salle’s 50-year existence: Dave Bryan, Greg Bryan, Joseph Kritzberg, Christian Reyes, William Adriance, Kevin Nguyen, and Jonah Lyon. 

Combined with their challenging academics, leadership skills, and their involvement with La Salle’s community, these students are “all we would hope for graduates of La Salle,” principal Andrew Kuffner said. “We not only have exceptional academic kids, we have exceptional community members.”

Academics have clearly been a top priority in their four years at La Salle, which has resulted in an impressive 4.00 unweighted GPA for all seven recipients. 

The Falconer interviewed each valedictorian to find out their individual stories on how they got to where they are now, and their plans for after graduation.

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Dave Bryan

The Bryan twins will be continuing their education together while attending University of Portland. They’re both looking to major in Mechanical Engineering and want to pursue jobs “related to energy.”

Dave said that although he worked very hard throughout his four years here, “[I] still made a point to enjoy my high school experience. [This] helped prevent me from getting tired of doing work constantly.”

Dave was very involved with the La Salle community, playing on the baseball team and tailgating at the football games with his friends.

One particular moment that tested his GPA was Mr. Krantz’s AP English class during his junior year. Even though the class “was rewarding,” Dave said that it was “certainly the biggest struggle I had at La Salle.”

He also spoke about how the beloved Ms. Bromley impacted his experience at La Salle. “She motivated me the most because, like many of the other teachers, she loved teaching and loved the students whom she taught,” he said. “Ms. Bromley taught me not only the importance of hard work but the importance of kindness.”

Greg Bryan

Similar to his brother, Greg said that he has had a fulfilling experience here at La Salle. He said that his grades and success here are thanks to “working hard, and teachers at La Salle make it fairly easy to get help when needed.”

Mr. Krantz’s AP English required high amounts of hard work and dedication, but Greg is grateful that he took the class, saying that “it paid off [and] I learned a lot.”

Mr. Swanson has also impacted his high school experience. “He demonstrates a strong balance between being himself, teaching the material well, and good relationships with his students.” Greg said it was hard to pin down a single teacher who motivated him because “there are so many teachers that motivate me in unique ways.”

However, he said that “maintaining a life away from school is also important.” To have both a social and school life, he has found out that “baseball and racquetball are excellent ways for me to maintain this balance.” He also always enjoys the festivities that St. La Salle Day brings.

Joseph Kreitzberg

Joseph Kreitzberg has a simple explanation as to how he was able to maintain his GPA and earn the title of valedictorian, saying that “I basically just stayed on top of things… I just did my homework assignments the day they were assigned and studied a lot and didn’t have many friends and missed out on parties.”

Although he was consistently able to keep this motivation, he struggled with two things throughout his four years at La Salle – Spanish, which he is not taking this year, and “managing all these classes, all their homework, and all the extraneous things you have to do because they are worth points but aren’t actually that useful in the long run.”

Overall, he said that he particularly enjoyed his time in Mr. Swanson’s and Mr. Doran’s classes. Along with excelling in these classes, he also described these two teachers as those who motivated him and helped him the most because he didn’t want to let them down.

Along with participating in Speech and Debate, in his free time, his favorite things to do outside of class are eating food, watching Netflix, and being with friends.

A fond memory that Joseph has is of his time on Harvard Model Congress, the second year he went, when he slid cheese under Mr. Lanaghan’s hotel room door and when he saw a couple “making out and being really gross,” so he took it upon himself to read Leviticus to them, causing them to leave.

Next year, Joseph will be attending the University of Portland.

Christian Reyes

Valedictorian Christian Reyes said he owes his grades to three things – sleep, balance, and efficiency. “I would have lost my mind already if I didn’t give myself a break to hang with my friends,” Christian said. In regards to actually finding this time to sleep, Christian said, “If you study smarter, not harder, and find time to breathe by staying loyal to a schedule you make, then you will find time to sleep.”

Looking back at his time at La Salle, Christian said that English was the most difficult subject for him. He said, “It wasn’t a problem of writing essays that make sense or problems with grammar or punctuation. The challenge in English was searching for the deep connection between ideas.”

However, he said that he was able to push past this and succeed because of how competitive he is, noting that he wants to do well in everything that he does, so that he can push his limits.

Two teachers that Christian says were influential to him are Mrs. Yan and Mr. Doran. He said that Mrs. Yan, his Chinese teacher, gave him the confidence to “tackle even the most difficult of subjects.”

Mr. Doran has been helping Christian ever since elementary school, in World History 1 freshman year, and now in AP Government and Economics as a senior. He said, “[Mr. Doran] was integral in shaping who I am today… [and] has been influential to me in multiple aspects of my life.”

Christian also attributes part of his motivation to two other teachers, Mrs. Cereghino and Mr. Krantz. He said, “Both teachers gave me a wake-up call by showing me how weak I am in writing.” However, he said they both gave him “thicker skin,” taught him how to improve, and that “by constantly being tough on me, they motivated me to push through.”

Outside of La Salle, Christian likes to simply be with his friends so they can give him a break from studying. In addition, he also participated in basketball, track and football. In the future, Christian hopes his major in engineering will help him move into the fields of making circuits for buildings or make programming apps for certain companies.

For college, Christian is choosing to move out of Oregon to attend Cal Berkeley. He chose Berkeley not only because it is a great school that will challenge him, but also because he will “get exposure to a community I have never known: a public school where there are more different views and a large community where there are many motivated people like me.”

William Adriance

William Adriance will be heading across the country next fall to attend Brown University, located in the state of Rhode Island. He chose Brown University for its wide range of courses to choose from and to “explore a lot of different areas of study,” he said. “I wanted to get out of the Portland area and see another area of the world during college.”

He’s uncertain of what subject he wants to pursue, but is hopeful that his time at Brown will open his eyes to new possibilities.

Even though William finds it more difficult to find motivation in this last semester of his senior year, he said that his overall success at La Salle came out of wanting to work hard and do well.

“It was really a desire to do my best,” he said. “I wanted to try my best on assignments and not settle for a mediocre effort.”

Outside of the classroom, William has been involved with multiple extracurricular activities. He is a student ambassador, a member of the cross country team, and this year he was the captain of the chess team.

He also got to play on the boys tennis team, which ended up being his favorite memory of his last year. “I’m not super good at tennis, but I love playing, and I had a really fun time with the team,” he said. His excitement for tennis will travel with him to Rhode Island, as he plans to play “to some extent in college because this year was so fun.”

William said that one teacher who had an impact on him was Mr. Krantz, who expanded his thought process and forced him “to grow as a writer, and write better than I ever had in school.”

Reflecting on his time at La Salle, William said that he pushed through his senior year, while trying to balance his grades, his social life, and prepare for his future. “There’s only so much time in the day to do things, and it becomes more and more challenging to use that time well when you have so many things to do.”

Kevin Nguyen

After graduating from La Salle, valedictorian Kevin Nguyen will be traveling to the University of Texas at Dallas to further his education. Not only was the sunshine and big city a factor as to why he chose UT Dallas, but “they have a phenomenal research program. They are also a very academically focused school,” he said.

He gives credit for his high GPA to his time management and friends who were always willing to help him. Mr. Krantz and Mrs. Moran were also big parts in helping Kevin “make [his] parents proud.”

Kevin said that Mr. Krantz’s class, along with being the most difficult and most rewarding, “really built up the writing and thinking skills needed for any field.”

Although he struggled with balancing his academic and social life, he always found time to swim, read, and go to the gym. Kevin will always treasure his memories from the Spain trip last spring because “the country was so beautiful and I greatly enjoyed spending time with my friends.”

Although Kevin will miss La Salle, he is excited to major in Chemistry with a pre-med focus, which will hopefully lead him to a surgical career.

Jonah Lyon

Musician Jonah has chosen to attend the University of Michigan to continue playing the violin and start on a pre-med track.

Jonah says that his success at La Salle was made possible through hard work and looking towards his future. “I took AP classes in everything, whether or not it was my favorite subject, because I knew it would prepare me for the future,” Jonah said.

Jonah said that Mrs. Moran kept his motivation up, and helped him to use his Spanish speaking skills outside of the classroom in the real world. This allowed Jonah to experience some of his favorite memories and activities – attending school trips to both Spain and El Paso, Texas, as well as serving his church “in the food pantry [and] helping non-Spanish speakers with immigration forums.” Another favorite teacher is Mr. Krantz, who Jonah said helped him to “become better in all ways.”

Along with these activities outside of school, Jonah also plays the violin in both the Portland Youth Symphony and the Portland Columbia Symphony Orchestra, which is a semi-professional orchestra.

Although Jonah is excited to major in music, he also plans on “doing a pre-med track by doing internships at the hospital, joining the health sciences living community, and taking other required classes for medical school.”

After studying at the University of Michigan, Jonah hopes to be involved in cancer research or be a cancer practitioner. He also hopes to travel to third world countries to expand and improve health care.

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Greg and Dave Bryan will speak at the Baccalaureate celebration on Friday, June 16th, and Christian Reyes and Joseph Kreitzberg will speak at graduation on Saturday, June 17th. Congratulations to all seven of these seniors for earning the title of valedictorian, and we wish you luck for your journey in college.
Creative Commons photo source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jessiejacobson/4735033196