As scholar, athlete and leader, North Lenoir senior has made LCPS experience count
By Patrick Holmes
In a school district that aspires to give its students a full range of academic, athletic and leadership opportunities, graduating senior Eagan Ballard has aspired to squeeze the last measure of value out of her LCPS experience.
Eagan, 18, of Kinston, will leave North Lenoir High School next month after mounding up an impressive stack of achievements – grades that earned her a scholarship to Honors College at East Carolina University, varsity letters in three sports, key roles in student-led associations and selection for community groups that reward such excellence and initiative.
“The reason I joined as many things as I did and participated in so many sports wasn’t necessarily because I thought I would be the best at it or that it would be my favorite thing. I just like being around other people and getting to support other people in that way,” Eagan said on Thursday, hours before she accepted her associate of arts degree at the Lenoir Community College graduation.
“I enjoy being part of the team.”
If the team is North Lenoir’s Class of 2025, Eagan contributed as a three-year Student Government Association representative, as vice president of the Honor Society, as a graduation marshal her junior year, as a role player with the North Lenoir Drama Club both onstage and backstage and as a long-time member of the Christian advocacy group Young Life.
If the team is her community, she took her place with the Chick-fil-A Leader Academy and as a Junior Rotarian with the Rotary Club of Kinston, selections reserved for top students.
If the team involves sports, Eagan captained the soccer team, cheerfully “rode the bench all season” with the volleyball team and put her toughness to the test as a North Lenoir wrestler, a sport she appreciates for its mental and physical demands. “I like trying to push myself past where I think I can go,” she said.
She went far, according to Jeff Yourdon, director of the culinary program at LCC and North Lenoir’s wrestling coach for 10 years. During her two years on the team, Eagan qualified for regional competition twice and compiled a 38-19 record, often winning against male opponents.
“When you talk to her, she’s just like this low-key personality, all ‘Miss Nice,’ and then when you see her on the wrestling mat, she’s a whole different person,” Yourdon said. “She’s a good competitor; but her leadership and camaraderie, that’s what makes her stand out. I love to see an athlete who can perform well, but even better I like to see someone who can lead and has good character because, as I tell them, they’ll need that in their carryover to life. And Eagan has that. She’ll be a leader wherever she goes.”
Providing a wide range of opportunities that allow students to discover their interests and test their abilities is the cornerstone of LCPS’s mission of helping grow capable, well-rounded adults, a process that begins in art-, music- and STEM-infused elementary classrooms, rachets up in middle school with band and sports and more and expands in high school as students begin to stretch toward adulthood.
It’s a process essential to meaningful education, according to North Lenoir High principal Rhonda Greene. “It supports well-rounded development, boosts confidence, encourages social engagement and helps students discover their interests and strengths beyond the classroom,” she said.
Homeschooled through the elementary grades, Eagan found a world of opportunity when she arrived at Contentnea-Savannah K-8. “Whenever I got into public school, I wanted to be involved as much as I could because I really didn’t get much experience with that when I was younger,” she said. “I was probably involved in more things at Contentnea-Savannah.”
If she had extra time in high school, it was filled with a part-time job that began at 6 a.m. and eight AP classes at North Lenoir on top of her college-level courses. The trend toward doing as much as possible will likely continue at ECU, where Eagan plans to pursue a research career in neuropsychology. She has her eye on the Young Life chapter there, student government, club volleyball, maybe a sorority. She already has a part-time job lined up in Greenville.
“I like to stay busy,” Eagan said.
Cutlines:
For Eagan Ballard, receiving an associate of arts degree from Lenoir Community College on Thursday evening presaged her graduation next month from North Lenoir High School, where she has compiled an impressive – and varied – record of achievement.
In her two years on the North Lenoir High wrestling team – the first as the only female on the team – Eagan Ballard compiled a 38-19 record and came to appreciate the sport for its physical and mental demands.
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