Before she attended La Salle, junior Katie Liu — a lifelong Oregonian and resident of Happy Valley — was a student at All Saints Catholic School for elementary and middle school, an institution which she said she has mixed feelings for.

According to Liu, while she had several good friends, she also struggled with feeling like an “outcast,” she said.

“My middle school was predominantly white, and a lot of teachings were that people from China were very different, and that they were weird, and so I wasn’t really fitting in unfortunately,” Liu said.

At La Salle, she noted that there were similar problems, but she still quickly found community in sports.

At the beginning of her freshman year, one of the several extracurriculars Liu signed up for was cheerleading, despite having little experience.

“I walked in not even knowing how to dance,” she said. “Sticking with that was very rough, but I did a lot of extra work that the coaches saw me build up, and I learned from it, and I love to dance.”

Before cheerleading, Liu — who said her dad encouraged her to join something that involved physical activity and teamwork — had participated in many sports, including jiujitsu, basketball, volleyball, tennis, track and field, badminton, and pickleball.

Liu has been a member of the Leadership class since her sophomore year. As a member of the Executive Council, she has helped plan events, worked to make positive changes around La Salle, and even ran for co-student body president earlier this year, a race she dropped out of.

According to Liu, she decided to leave the presidential race for moral reasons, saying that she viewed the election as a “popularity vote.”

“Not a lot of people really wanted to listen to my campaign or wanted to listen to the things I had to offer La Salle,” she said. “I dropped out because I saw ways I could change La Salle, and better, in different leadership opportunities.”

Next year, Liu will be serving on the Executive Council as Club Commissioner, with primary responsibilities including organizing the Club Fair and serving as a primary point of contact for both club moderators and presidents. 

Liu herself is involved in many clubs, serving as the founder and president of the Baking Club — with her sibling serving as vice president — one of the leaders of the Asian American Pacific Islander Club, and a member of Earth Club and Jiujitsu Club.

A club she highlighted as especially meaningful to her is the Baking Club, one she helped start as a freshman.

“I took it as a way to represent my family, because my dad used to own a restaurant, and he had [a passion for] cooking,” she said.

The Baking Club now has over 60 members, according to Liu. Her goal in the club is ultimately to teach culinary skills to students.

“I feel like here at high school, this is a great time to learn before you go drop off into college and you don’t know how to cook or how to make sweet treats,” she said.

Liu is also a member of the Speech and Debate team, an extracurricular that she said she enjoys, although she hasn’t been as active this year. 

Liu initially did not intend to join the team. After following two students to the speech and debate room out of curiosity, history teacher Mr. Mike Doran handed her a paper and said, “’All right, Katie, I’m going to need you here by this time.’” 

She has applied this willingness to try new things, or retry old things, in other academic spheres.

Liu said she developed an interest in STEM during her sophomore year because of science teacher Ms. Alayna Enos’s chemistry class.

“I, unfortunately, did not do very good in physics, and it kind of ruined my idea of science, but through Ms. Enos … I regained the passion,” she said.

In the future, Liu hopes to attend Oregon State University and, inspired by her love for science, pursue pediatric dentistry.