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06/08/2022 08:30 AMEach year the graduating high school senior with the highest academic record is named the school’s valedictorian. For the North Haven High School class of 2022, the person to earn this honor is Hannah Auddino.
Hannah was born and lived in Hamden with her family until she was five.
“I moved here [to North Haven] at the end of kindergarten, so pretty much all of my education has been through North Haven,” says Hannah.
From the day she was old enough to start school, Hannah displayed a knack for educational studies, and school and learning deeply interested her.
“School has always been an interest of mine,” says Hannah. “I enjoy going [to school] and I enjoy learning, and I’ve always really liked reading. With that, you can learn so many other different things that aren’t necessarily literature.”
Grade school educators agree that the lower grades are where the basics of education are taught, and good study habits are developed to set young people up for educational success in the future. In Hannah’s case, her top grades in all classes resulted in a grade point average (GPA) that placed her at the top of her class, earning her the honor of valedictorian.
Hannah explains a bit how being named valedictorian works.
“It’s based on GPA solely,” she says. “The GPA is determined from the weight of your classes [meaning advanced placement classes], how many credits you take to contribute to it, and if you do well in those classes, and so on.
“I’m honored to be in the position of valedictorian,” Hannah continues, humbly. “I feel like this class of 2022 has been so competitive with each other, throughout high school especially, but in a good way. We all have that positive competition between us that allows us the thrive, to push ourselves harder to achieve our highest capabilities.”
Hannah’s next venture into education will be a Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, one of the top educational institutions in the U.S.
“I will be majoring in neuroscience and global health, on the pre-med track,” says Hannah. “I’d like to become a developmental-behavioral pediatrician.”
Hannah admits her interests are “kind of all over the place,” and she took advanced placement (A.P.) biology in her senior year “to see if medicine is something I would really be interested in,” she says.
The answer to that was yes, taking A.P. biology “really helped bolster that I am interested in medicine for a career,” she notes, adding, “I really owe that to my A.P. biology teacher, Dr. [Lisa] Ball-Goodrich.”
Hannah also credits others for both inspiring her and supporting her desire to learn as much as she could while in high school.
“The entire group of teachers I’ve had, have all taught me so many different lessons outside of the curriculum, especially the history, English, and music departments,” notes Hannah. “They really helped shape who I am today, my interests, and how I hold myself.”
Psychology was also one of Hannah’s favorite classes, which will help with her future medical training.
“Psychology helped me figure out what I want to do,” says Hannah.
Hannah completed her volunteer hours—a requirement for all students to receive their high school diplomas—helping in various areas. She started the Key Club during her junior year, “which is the high school branch of Kiwanis International,” explains Hannah.
“We are part of Wallingford’s Kiwanis. We do community service in a lot of different areas. We worked with the Landing of North Haven [helping senior citizens], the North Haven Garden Club, the [North Haven] Trail Association, and did work in the school,” she says.
As a member of the National Honor Society, Hannah helped with a food drive.
“We raised [collected donations] of 150 pounds of food,” Hannah says, “which we were able to donate to a local food pantry.”
And she interned at the Department of Public Works during her junior year and read to children at the library as part of her volunteerism efforts.
But that’s not all. She also started a food rescue initiative during her junior year called Encourage Nourishment.
“That was when we were still half in school and half out [during COVID],” explains Hannah. “We had bag lunches that were given out [to students] by the cafeteria staff, and often the students would throw out the produce they didn’t want.”
Seeing this as a terrible waste—especially when so many people were thrust into financial and food insecurity during the pandemic—Hannah championed the placement of bins, with the help of her psychology teacher, Evan Soderholm, “and we collected the food and donated it to the same food pantry,” says Hannah.
Hannah also enjoyed sports during her high school years, both volleyball and Unified Sports for all four years, and she served as a captain of both.
“Unified Sports is like Special Olympics, but it’s the high school level,” explains Hannah. “I was a peer and worked with kids that have intellectual developmental disabilities and we played sports together at one practice a week.”
Hannah also ventured into musical performance by joining the school band. Her love of music was influenced by her father’s work and passion as a musician, which helped inspire her to play the flute, after first picking up the instrument at age nine.
“I would like to try out for an ensemble at Duke,” Hannah says of her desire to continue playing the flute, but at a higher level.
During this transition time and the setting of sights on new goals and an exciting future, Hannah says, “All the teachers really helped me grow up to be who I am. I won’t be seeing them daily as I did for the past few years, and the same goes for my friends. We’re all going to different schools.”
And it was Hannah’s volunteer work with children in North Haven Unified Sports Program that made her realize that her professional future included pediatric medicine.
“This is what I want to do when I’m older,” Hannah concludes. “This is what I want to do to contribute to society.”