This is the sixth entry in the Class of 2023 series.
Arereunti Goodwin doesn't like to brag.
The 18-year-old was soft-spoken earlier this week about her accomplishments as the final valedictorian of Friendship Aspire Academy Southeast Campus – at least until 2027. But today, she'll share a message loud and wide with a community of classmates and supporters inside the school's gymnasium for graduation, which starts at noon.
"Very quiet and very respectable," Principal Anitra Rogers said of Goodwin. "You can give her a task and say, 'Hey, this is what I need you to get done.' She will get it done plus some. If she has any questions, she's going to ask questions, and she's going to help her classmates get there as well. Very, very determined to finish strong."
Goodwin's class began high school when the campus was Southeast Arkansas Preparatory School. It was taken over in the middle of that 2019-20 school year by Friendship Education Foundation Arkansas, which phased out the school by allowing the students already enrolled to continue matriculating there but not adding a new class.
The foundation has since elected to begin a slow-growth model for 2023-24 by enrolling freshmen, many of whom will be transfers from Lighthouse Charter School, and adding a high school grade each year. A secondary school is under construction at Friendship-Southeast's 73rd Avenue campus and will house students in grades 6-9.
"I just see it as an honor from where we started from to where we're ending," said Goodwin, who previously attended Lighthouse. "I feel like it's a start and an end to, like, where we're going. It made a big impact on our lives. It was teaching us valuable lessons like, how to go into the real world, teaching us finances and all types of stuff."
Goodwin kept a simple schedule of extracurricular activities – she played point guard in basketball and ran track. But she kept academics first and stayed on top of her classes, with encouragement from Rogers and her mother.
"Arereunti was one of my star athletes," Rogers said. "Had a great love for basketball. Last year (2021-22) was the first year we had a girls' team. She would go out there and just try to rally her teammates. She'd go out there and give it her all. The aggression on the court was really good for her.
"She's real quiet and she doesn't bother anybody. So, when she got out there on the court, she would give it her all. It wasn't just a pretty soon, but that's one person I can say that from start to end, she gave it her all."
Goodwin said she was surprised earlier this year when Rogers informed her she was in position to be valedictorian.
"I didn't ever think about it," Goodwin said when asked if that was a goal of hers beforehand.
Math is Goodwin's favorite subject, but when pressed if there is a particular branch that she likes, she answered: "Not really."
She'll get to put math into play when she studies nursing and respiratory therapy at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
"I just like helping people," Goodwin said. "... I just find a heart in it."
To finish as valedictorian of the last Friendship Aspire Academy Southeast graduating class until 2027 is an honor, as Arereunti Goodwin described. (Pine Bluff Commercial/I.C. Murrell)