As the school year comes to a close, the school administration has continued their annual tradition of selecting the valedictorians and salutatorians — seniors who exemplify academic excellence to the highest degree. This year, those students are valedictorians Adina Dominitz and Kyra Nguyen and salutatorians Ali Moran and Esmé Ryznar.

In choosing the valedictorians, seniors’ cumulative weighted GPA through their first seven semesters was the key factor, with course rigor and individual grades playing a role too, according to the student handbook. Seniors with the second-highest cumulative weighted GPA through their first seven semesters received the salutatorian designation.

The valedictorians will deliver their speech during graduation on Saturday, June 6 at Rolling Hills Community Church, and the salutatorians will speak during Baccalaureate Mass on Friday, June 5 — which, for the first time in recent history, will be held at La Salle rather than Saint John the Baptist Catholic Church.

Each valedictorian and salutatorian took a unique path to get where they are today. To better understand what led to their academic success, The Falconer spoke with these students about their passions, high school journeys, and plans after La Salle.

Valedictorian Adina Dominitz

As long as she has been in school, valedictorian Adina Dominitz said she has made her academics a top priority. While her education has continuously been encouraged by her parents, she clarified that it also holds significance for her as a personal value.

“I knew very young that academics were important,” she said. “With a strong academic foundation, you can have a lot of opportunities.”

Now, Dominitz’s dedication has paid off, as she has been named one of two valedictorians for the Class of 2026 alongside senior Kyra Nguyen, which Dominitz said was her ideal scenario.

“Ms. O’Brien and Ms. Coughran told us, and I just gave Kyra a hug because I was very happy,” she said. “If I was valedictorian, I wanted to be with her.”

However, earning the title took time, especially as she was navigating a healthier approach to academics, she said.

Looking back on her freshman year, Dominitz reflected on the old belief that she constantly had to be perfect — that anything less than 100% was a failure. She said this mindset only worsened junior year, when she was juggling more activities than ever before: the academic rigor of several AP and honors classes, college applications, work, and multiple sports.

She found that when she put too much pressure on herself to produce flawless work, she would procrastinate more due to the stress, making it much harder to balance her extracurriculars. This year, she’s learned to set aside that standard in favor of just getting things done.

“If I just start something and just know that as long as I try my best, it’s okay, then it’s a lot easier to balance, because I will complete the work much faster, and I’ll have more time for extracurriculars and less stress,” she said.

Rather than taking a sixth AP class this year, Dominitz elected for a TA period with science teacher Mr. Matthew Owen. As she was used to always opting for the more difficult classes, this change in approach was disorienting at first, but she said it paid off.

“I’m not used to prioritizing myself and my mental health — I’m used to just trying to do all that I can,” she said. “It’s okay if I don’t take the hardest classes, or I’m not perfect, because I’m putting myself first.”

The choice to take a TA period instead of another AP was one of the reasons that Dominitz didn’t anticipate being valedictorian, but she is glad that it worked out.

“In my mind, I made the decision to not be valedictorian by taking that TA period, and I was actually okay with that fact,” she said. “So it was kind of an unnecessary, but nice surprise.”

For Dominitz, the course rigor she undertook throughout her time at La Salle isn’t anything out of the ordinary — her whole family is quite academically oriented, she explained, so it felt like the natural thing to do.

“I never thought of it as a good thing or a bad thing, just something I had to do, because that’s what everyone does, at least in my life,” Dominitz said.

When choosing a high school, Dominitz wavered between Jesuit High School and La Salle, ultimately choosing the latter for two reasons: she found La Salle’s community to be more welcoming, and her brother, Nate Dominitz ‘23, attended the school already.

Dominitz expressed the pressure she felt to succeed at La Salle, as her brother was also one of the valedictorians of his class.

“My parents told me that there’s no pressure … but obviously [if] my brother is valedictorian, then I feel like I have to be, otherwise I am worse as a child, as a person,” Dominitz said. “I was the only one who put the pressure on myself.”

Dominitz’s parents placed a lot of emphasis on academics in her childhood, she said, filling her time with productive, formative activities, such as various sleepaway camps during the summer. They also bought her workbooks and other recreational reading.

Though her parents made sure she stayed occupied, Dominitz emphasized that the volume of her work is something she takes on independently, rather than something that her parents urge her to do. Instead, her family has been one of her biggest supporters.

“They’ve never put pressure on me to be the best or take the hardest classes,” she said. “They never tell me that I need to be better or do more … if I felt like I wasn’t doing enough or something, it would be because I’m putting that pressure on myself.”

Early on, Dominitz said that her academic appetite was also encouraged by her environment, as her elementary and middle school offered a “breakout space” for especially bright students to take on more academically challenging projects — for example, her group performed a play based off of a book series they read.

“I was actually able to be challenged during school and do it with my best friends,” she said. “It was a bit more complicated and advanced, and also just easier to apply to real life … I just got to be with my friends and do school, but make it fun.”

Through these opportunities, and across her time in elementary and middle school in general, Dominitz became very close to classmates whom she is still friends with today.

Coming to high school, however, Dominitz knew that most of her friends would not be following her to La Salle, so she signed up for sports in order to make new connections.

“It was nice to have soccer and basketball in the summer to help meet people,” she said. “If I didn’t, I think I would have had a much rougher first semester.”

Throughout high school, Dominitz has played basketball, soccer, and flag football for La Salle, and club lacrosse outside of school. Though she did enjoy playing her other sports, she eventually reduced her schedule to just lacrosse this year, as playing lacrosse and flag football at the same time was too much.

Dominitz’s most important value is collaboration, she said. When working alone, she explained, she is restricted to her own thoughts and ideas, which limits creativity.

“If I’m working with a bunch of other people, then I have multiple perspectives, and if we use our perspectives, we’ll come up with different ideas,” Dominitz said. “Once you have that collaboration, then you’ll create better things than if you’re doing something just by yourself.”

It’s one of the things she appreciates most about La Salle — from sports, to theater, to group projects and in-class work, there is always opportunity for collaboration, she said.

“I like how people are willing to collaborate and work together, and people don’t necessarily always just do it by themselves,” Dominitz said.

One of her favorite memories from the past four years was getting to go on the Blackfeet Immersion trip this year, where she worked with several other La Salle students in classrooms on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Montana. Together, they learned more about the injustices perpetrated on indigenous communities in the past, such as the boarding schools Native American children were forced into.

Dominitz said her favorite parts of the immersion were becoming friends with the other students on the trip and getting to tutor and play with the children.

“I really liked being in the classroom, because I realized how difficult it is to be a teacher,” she said. “The students have been through so much. They really need all that help, and just being able to help them and also see their progress was also great.”

Dominitz’s greatest achievement, she said, was the completion of her bat mitzvah at 13, a Jewish coming-of-age celebration that recognizes the transition into adulthood.

During the ceremony, Dominitz had to lead several prayers, read a section from the Haftarah, and give a speech in front of all of her friends and family present, all in Hebrew. Because she doesn’t speak the language, it took months of work to learn the materials she needed, which at times felt impossible, she said.

“I was about to start my speech after I’d read from the Torah, and I [remember] taking a breath and looking around and realizing, ‘Wow, I just did this,’” she said. “I never thought I could do it, and I was very proud of myself.”

Next year, Dominitz will be following her brother to Rice University in Houston, majoring in biosciences with a biochemistry concentration. Having visited her brother on multiple occasions, she chose Rice because she already felt familiar with the environment.

“I’ve probably been down to Houston almost ten times at this point, and every time we go, when I’m with my brother, I’m also with his friends,” Dominitz said. “I’m like a part of the Rice community, which makes me really love it … I liked the community that existed there.”

She looks forward to finding her place in a new space this fall and is satisfied with what she has done and how she has grown since freshman year.

“I like to think I’m more confident, or at least, I know myself better,” Dominitz said. “I am much more relaxed and able to be myself … I found my people.”

Valedictorian Kyra Nguyen

For valedictorian Kyra Nguyen, the value of hard work has always been something modeled for her by her parents and three brothers. 

Her mother is a dentist, and her father, who works as a pharmacist, was the valedictorian of his high school. Additionally, one of her brothers is a resident, one is serving in the Navy, and one is attending Pomona College in Claremont, California next year. 

“I’ve had a lot of people to look up to,” she said.

While the success of her three brothers sometimes set a high bar, her parents always supported her no matter what, and she credits them with setting her up for success early. 

“I feel like my parents have always just been, ‘just try your best,’” she said. “They’re always just pretty supportive.” 

Nguyen grew up in Happy Valley, living in the same house for her whole life. She attended Christ the King Parish School until fifth grade before transitioning to Happy Valley Middle School and then Rock Creek Middle School, eventually ending up at La Salle for high school, following in the footsteps of her older brothers. 

When deciding what high school to attend, the biggest factor for her was the academic opportunities offered. 

Since she was young, she loved learning math, participating in math camps over the summer at Jesuit High School and taking Algebra II at Clackamas High School when she was in middle school. She was drawn to La Salle over Clackamas, which was her local option, because of its advanced math programs. 

“That’s when I was like, ‘maybe I should keep going further,”’ Nguyen said. “I think that helped shape me to go where I am now, which is multivariable calculus.”

While the transition to La Salle from a public middle school was fairly smooth, she had high expectations for herself from the beginning, which was sometimes difficult to manage. 

“I remember being stressed out if I got a 97 on a test my freshman year,” she said.

Nguyen’s mentality is to always push her limits and challenge herself, she said, a mindset which is drawn from her goal of becoming a physician. 

Knowing she is going to face difficult material in college and medical school, she wanted to prepare herself the best way she could in high school, often taking advanced classes both for the content matter and to practice excelling with rigorous coursework. 

“At times it can feel meaningless or insignificant, like the work I’m doing, but I know in the long run it’s helping me and it’s building a work ethic,” she said. “It’s creating a discipline for myself that I know will carry me further in college, and hopefully medical school.”

While her most enjoyable classes have been math, as she loves it, one of the courses that taught her the most at La Salle was Honors English II with English Department Chair Mr. Greg Larson. 

English as a subject doesn’t come naturally to her, and the amount of work that she had to put in to find success with the class made the results mean more to her, teaching her the value of resilience and perseverance.  

“It helped me develop more as a person,” she said. “I had to learn, like, even if I try my hardest, I’m not going to get the grades or the results that I desire, but it doesn’t take away from the effort that I put in.”

The class’s high level of rigor taught her what it’s like to push through difficulty, an experience which she valued, especially because it prepared her in part for the challenges she’ll inevitably face on the path to becoming a physician. 

“I’ve been able to see what it feels like to struggle, and I think I kind of like it,” she said. “In college and hopefully medical school, I will be challenged, and I need to be used to it, and I need to know what grit is.”

In addition to preparing herself for her goal of medical school, another factor that heavily influenced the classes Nguyen selected throughout her high school career was her lifelong dream of becoming valedictorian. 

“I was always thinking, ‘what’s the next hardest class I could take?’” she said. “That’s why my sophomore year I took AP Stats and AP Calculus AB at the same time, because I was like, ‘let me challenge myself and maximize my GPA a little bit.’”

Maintaining this schedule was extremely challenging, especially in early May, when AP tests take place, but Nguyen finds pride in the work that she put in and what she was able to accomplish. 

“It’s a hard balance, but I think it was so worth it, and it’s so fulfilling,” she said. “I’m proud of myself.”

While being valedictorian was always something Nguyen aspired to, one of the first moments she remembered specifically deciding on it as a goal was when she shadowed at La Salle. 

After her day shadowing a La Salle student was done, she received a small cube, each side depicting different aspects of what students could be — an athlete, a class president, or a valedictorian. She saw herself, and her vision for personal success, in the image of the valedictorian, and was inspired, keeping the cube as a memento of what she wanted to achieve throughout high school. 

“I looked up to that cube a lot,” she said. 

In addition to this, one of her older brothers was a valedictorian at La Salle, and sibling competitiveness has always been a large motivator in her life, driving her to succeed and push herself past what she thought she could do. 

“I’m always trying to be better than them,” she said. “They are just so smart, and they’re my role models, and I think, in a way, I’ve been trying to achieve excellence, not by comparing myself to my fellow peers, but to my older brothers.” 

Outside of academics, one of the things Nguyen is most proud of is how she’s grown as a person during her time at La Salle. 

While the small-school environment of La Salle was initially a challenge for her, it’s pushed her to grow a lot in her self-confidence, something she feels has increased a lot from freshman year to where she is now.

“I think I started to grow more confident in myself as I went through experiences, as I learned to lose,” she said. “I’m able to accept my losses and also my wins.”

Throughout high school, Nguyen has been involved in several activities outside of the classroom, including choir, tennis, and being a leader for the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) club. 

Music’s been a part of her life since she was young, as she’s always loved to sing and has played the piano for 12 years. 

“Even when I study, I’m singing,” she said. “My parents are used to it … it’ll be like 12 o’clock at night, and they’ll just hear singing, and that’s because I’m studying for my math test or something.” 

Being a part of La Salle’s choir for all four years has allowed her to pursue her love of singing and also find community, something she greatly appreciated about being part of the AAPI club as well. 

As a Vietnamese American, she joined the club as a freshman, and has really valued her experience both as a member initially and then for the past two years as a leader.  

“I love creating a community, just being able to plan games and meetings and seeing people just feel like they can be their selves,” she said. “I’ve really struggled being myself, and I want to try to help others, because sometimes it’s scary.”

One of the places most special to her is the La Salle tennis courts. 

Nguyen, who joined the team her freshman year, had very little background or prior experience with tennis. 

“It was a completely new sport, and I could barely hit the ball,” she said. “But I just kept going to the open courts, going to practices, trying to be out there — I spent a lot of my high school time like on the tennis courts.” 

After winning JV districts her sophomore year, she fully dedicated herself to the sport, quitting swimming and focusing her effort on becoming a better tennis player. That paid off, and one of her greatest accomplishments was making it to state this year for tennis, she said. 

Being on the tennis courts also gave Nguyen a side of her life completely separate from academics. 

“I was afraid of just being just smart,” she said. “I didn’t want everything about me to be about academics, and I feel like this validated what I was worried about, because I’m an athlete and also a student, and I think that just adds so much more to me.”

Next year, Nguyen will be attending Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. 

Looking back on her time in high school, Nguyen said she’s proud of how much work she has put in, and that she’s looking forward to what comes next.

“Everybody has been working hard; everyone’s been putting forth their best effort,” Nguyen said. “I think it’s a celebration of what we’ve done and what we all have achieved, and I’m just excited to get that final diploma, and to walk across the stage.”

Salutatorian Ali Moran

Outside of salutatorian Ali Moran’s academic career, community service has been central to her life.

Since the start of high school, she has volunteered for over 220 hours, mostly at the Wichita Center and the Oregon Food Bank, and she received Clackamas County Rotary Club’s student of the year award this spring.

“It’s been able to be something that I’ve kind of fallen in love with, and it’s been something that I’ve been able to see the impact I’ve made on the community that I serve in,” she said. “It’s been an accomplishment for me that’s outside of anything academic or outside of anything that could be quantified.”

However, academics have still played a major role in her life, with her philosophy being to take the most challenging courses available, she said.

During her first three years of high school, Moran said she didn’t have much balance, focusing most of her energy on school and making sacrifices for it. This past year, though, she said she has worked on changing that.

“What I focused on this year has been balancing and making sure I set aside the time for … myself and being able to hang out with friends,” she said. “In order to be happy mentally and stuff, you have to have that balance.”

What this looks like is “making use of every moment at school so that I can still have a life outside of it,” she said, emphasizing how she uses in-class work time fully now and stays on top of work when she arrives home.

When Moran does get stressed from school, she finds hiking to be a nice break.

“With so much stress going on during the week for school and stuff, I always love going hiking on the weekends,” she said. “I can spend time away from all the stress, and it’s for me a bit of a mental reset where I can just … quiet the noise for a little bit in my brain.”

For her, much of this stress came from the pressure she put on herself.

Nevertheless, she said her motivation was always learning — not grades — which is why she never expected to be salutatorian.

“I saw my GPA, but I never wanted to put that on myself because I always did it for just the reason of making myself proud,” she said. “I never really thought about that as a possibility.”

However, she still wishes she recognized her successes sooner and been prouder.

“I was doing so well in school, but I was still being hard on myself, and I should have realized at the time to be proud of myself,” she said.

Now, after achieving more balance, she said she has more time to hang out with friends and go to sports games during the week.

This drive for balance also manifested when forecasting for her senior year classes, selecting classes she was actually passionate about, rather than just the hardest options.

This year, her favorite classes are AP Statistics and AP Calculus AB, both taught by Math Department Chair Ms. Kathleen Jahn, whose teaching style makes her Moran’s favorite teacher, she said.

“She’s really passionate about what she’s teaching, and so that makes me even more interested in the material,” Moran said. “She’s also just been really supportive of me taking both of those classes this year.”

AP Calculus AB was Moran’s hardest class because of the concepts’ difficulty, but she finds that the complexity is engaging rather than discouraging.

“It’s good to always have that challenge, and then be able to figure out what you need to do to be able to succeed,” she said.

Another influential adult to her is math teacher Ms. Rose Adkisson, who was “a really crucial part of me realizing how much I loved math,” Moran said. “She kind of helped me see that, and also she just believed in me.”

Moran has also been involved in athletics at La Salle on the cross country and track team — the latter of which was one of her favorite memories at La Salle, she said.

“It’s been something that I’ve been able to have as an outlet and be able to be proud of myself within,” she said.

She enjoys bonding with the underclassmen on the team and getting to be a big sister.

“It’s been amazing to have underclassmen on my team with me that I get to throw with and spend time with every day, and it’s just like they’re my little sisters now,” she said. “Having that relationship kind of keeps you coming back when you know it’s a fun environment.”

This year, Moran is enjoying her role as a student life intern for Director of Campus Ministry Mr. Carter Powers and Campus Ministry Assistant Ms. Brianna Freitas.

She said she also enjoyed her Intro to Design and Advanced Design classes as an underclassman because she loves being creative.

Moran said she also expresses her creativity through the various carpentry projects that she has done with her dad over the past four years, such as making tables during a downstairs renovation and garden boxes for their backyard.

“It’s kind of our bonding time,” Moran said.

She attended Milwaukie Montessori School for preschool and then went to Christ the King Parish School for the next nine years. For her, middle school was a time of figuring things out and “learning the ropes of what it meant to have harder classes, but also … being able to form a community,” she said.

Her choice to attend La Salle was partially influenced by the teachers Moran already knew here because of her mother, World Languages Department Chair Ms. Lisa Moran.

“I already had that family here, so why wouldn’t I [attend La Salle]?” she said. “It’s nice to be able to have people who have known you forever, and they’ve seen me grow up completely.”

At La Salle, Moran has been involved in the Earth Club as the Service and Drive Coordinator, which entails brainstorming the different drives, such as the winter coat drive and the book drive, connecting with agencies to make them happen, and coordinating the service hours students get from collecting cans and bottles.

“What I really liked was being able to see things that were our ideas come to fruition and be able to see people get involved in the ideas that we had come up with,” she said.

A memorable experience for Moran was the El Otro Lado immersion she went on last year.

“That kind of transformed my perspective, and the relationships I built there … nothing could ever compare,” she said. “What we saw there just also forever transformed my life.”

She said it was very eye-opening, and that she gained more empathy and perspective from the experiences of the trip. It was also a key factor in inspiring what she wants to focus on in the future.

“It really kind of made me realize what I want to do, in the sense of how you can help and serve those people specifically,” she said.

Moran plans to major in political science at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska next year.

She is considering going into either law or government work, with her goal being “to make an impact on other people’s lives and be able to be the best person I can in serving others.”

Inspired by both her service work and experience on El Otro Lado, she is particularly interested in immigration law.

In the government, she would like to work on addressing food insecurity, as it is similar to her service work.

“I feel very called to it just because I would be able to serve those same people, but on a higher level,” she said.

She wanted to go to Creighton because of its status as a Jesuit school, as well as its service opportunities and programs.

“When I first walked onto Creighton’s campus, I could just tell it had that same Catholic-school vibe that every Catholic school has, where it just kind of feels like home,” she said. “When I got to talk to students there … they shared their love for the community, and so I think that community part was big.”

She is looking forward to meeting new people there and watching sports games, especially basketball.

In college, Moran is looking forward to a new start and using her past experiences to inform her continuing journey.

“I’m looking forward to kind of being able to take everything I’ve learned of myself and being able to apply that to having a fresh start, and being able to kind of do everything right this time,” she said.

Salutatorian Esmé Ryznar

Salutatorian Esmé Ryznar traces her mindset of independence and hard work — which she said has driven her academic success — all the way back to her Montessori education in elementary school and her family’s core values. 

“Montessori education gave me the freedom to choose what I wanted to do each day, which influenced my work ethic because now, I am able to make myself get work done and do it well,” she said. “I grew up making the choice to do my work, and that has continued into who I am today.” 

Her parents also focused on instilling similar values and offering other opportunities for independence at home. 

“I think that our family household culture was a lot of trust and … mutual respect,” Ryznar said.

Both at school and at home, that comfortable environment is part of what built her into the person she is today, she said.

“I think that [my mom’s] attitude — of how she chose to let [my brother] and I do what we did, or what we wanted to do — was really helpful in not forcing us to do things, but it did cultivate us into wanting to be good people and work hard,” she said.

Next year, Ryznar will be playing Division III soccer at Kenyon College in Ohio. Though she has not yet decided on a major, she expects to dive deeper into a STEM field, especially since she will be taking science and math classes at Kenyon over the summer as part of a scholarship she earned.

Her interest in STEM is partially inspired by her father, who is a project manager for the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission. 

And just as she can trace the roots of her academic success back to her earliest years, she can do the same with her social attitude, she said. 

Although she is now able to laugh, thinking on how comparatively inconsequential it was, one experience sticks out.

“I had a friend in elementary school that was really mean — or at least, my six-year-old brain perceived her as really mean,” she said. “I was like, ‘I’m never going to treat somebody like that, and I never want to make anybody feel bad.’”

While that was only one moment, she is still trying to live out that promise every day.

“I still usually get a stomachache if I think somebody is mad at me because I don’t like confrontation, and I hate making people feel sad,” she said. “I just always try to make sure everyone else around me feels like they are valued and appreciated.”

Although Ryznar is proud of her academic successes, she doesn’t see them as the most important part of herself. 

“The most important thing to know about me is that I’m never judging you — I really like hearing from people or seeing things and experiencing life in general,” she said. “I hope that I’m easy enough to be around, but if I’m not for some reason, I would like people to know that I really enjoy being around them.” 

That meant that when she started high school, academics weren’t the only thing at the forefront of her mind, and becoming salutatorian was never one of her goals. Instead, her focus was more interpersonal, and she simply tried “to be recognized by people as somebody that’s a hard worker,” she said.

But she has always believed that she possesses great academic strength in her versatility and her ability to be engaged with everything, even if she doesn’t feel she excels in any one particular subject. 

Even so, she never imagined these skills would get her as far as salutatorian, she said.

“I’m not the best at things, but that’s okay, because I’m good at them, and I find joy in them,” she said. “I never realized [being salutatorian] was an attainable goal for me.”

Especially because of the standards set by her friends and family, she never considered herself to be particularly successful academically.

“I guess my family’s mindset was you just take the hardest classes,” she said. “I was friends with people that were academically driven, and my brother was obviously very smart and took all the hard classes, so I just thought it was what you did.”

Even though she has experienced much academic success, it has not been without hardships, requiring many long nights, she said.

“I always tell myself that it would be great to start my homework the day that it’s assigned, so I can stay on top of things and get ahead,” she said. “That honestly very rarely happened.”

However, Ryznar believes that even if she doesn’t always defeat procrastination, that can be made up for by her passion for the subjects she studies.

“I think having genuine interest is really the main piece of school that people need to have, even if it’s difficult or time consuming to have it,” she said.

In addition to learning the importance of curiosity and engagement, Ryznar said she’s come to understand the value of an even more important academic tool: asking for help.

“I used to be a very keep-your-head-down, solve-everything-yourself kind of person,” she said. “I’ve realized that we’re all in this together … we’re all getting the same assignments and doing the same work every day, so I can ask other people for help, and I’ve gotten better at asking teachers for help when I actually need it.” 

Her mother, who works as a teacher at the Montessori school Ryznar attended — Sunstone Montessori — has helped her better understand this and see her own teachers in a different light.

“Seeing my mom as a teacher …  gave me a new appreciation when I went to school every day,” she said. “I obviously value them a lot, and I’m very grateful for their services.” 

Some classes that have had a particularly strong impact on her were Honors Chemistry with science teacher Mr. Matthew Owen and Honors Biology with science teacher Mr. Ryan Kain because they allowed her to discover her interest in STEM.

“I’m grateful for my teachers because they always saw more in me than I saw in myself, and they were always more excited for me than I was for myself for everything that I was doing,” she said. “That level of interest and engagement in my life, when they don’t necessarily have to be that interested or engaged, was really beneficial to me … I wouldn’t have had a very good time in high school without teachers that made school good.”

Even in the subjects she does not necessarily intend to study in college, Ryznar still gives a lot of credit for her overall success to her teachers — especially journalism teacher Mr. Miles Kane and English Department Chair Mr. Greg Larson. 

“Mr. Kane, he is one of my mentors … because he always was there for me and pushed me to be a leader,” she said. “Obviously, English class freshman and sophomore year with Mr. Larson really shaped my academic career, because those classes were pretty difficult, and working through them taught me about myself and taught me about the level of work that I’m willing to put in.”

Many of those mentors and moments most foundational to Ryznar’s mindset have been found at religious schools, although faith has never been especially crucial to her family. Still, it has been useful to Ryznar in keeping herself grounded throughout her journey at La Salle. 

“I really like the idea … that if you want to put your trust in something else … you don’t have to worry about everything on your own” she said. “It just is a nice space for me to live and give out my worries so I don’t have to keep them all in my own head.”

Ryznar’s own experience with faith has helped her navigate life’s challenges, focusing on interpersonal relationships and her mental health rather than strict adherence to doctrine. 

“I know there’s a lot of controversies in the world with the actual religion … but I don’t see that when you’re going to church on Sunday and you’re sitting next to a little family in the pews,” she said. “It just gives me a little bit of hope and faith in humanity sometimes, because I just see sweet families that are there for the right reasons.”

Rynzar has also found great value in expressing her faith through service, especially as it has been centered in the Lasallian portion of her education. 

Recently, this has manifested in her service at Northwest Children’s Outreach, a small, volunteer-based program that coordinates the collection and distribution of necessities to impoverished families and children throughout the Portland area.

“I was filling bags full of clothes, shoes, toys, books, and stuffed animals for kids, and then it was really sad to me to actually see the little names on the bags,” she said. “Stuff like that makes me go home and recognize [that] I have a lot of things to be grateful for.” 

As she continues through life, Ryznar wants to keep trying to embody the Lasallian core values, especially “Respect for All Persons.”

“The world definitely needs lots of respect for each other, because … we can’t all live on our own islands, so we need each other, and if we’re not willing to respect each other, then there’s nowhere to go,” she said. “I’m really trying to genuinely get to know people and always let them know that they are loved and respected.”