Scholar Athlete Award Winner Named Woodside Valedictorian

Editor's Note: Every day until graduation on June 3, Redwood City Patch will feature a local valedictorian to showcase the incredible accomplishments of our local youth. Read about another Woodside valedictorian, Evan Cann, . 

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In regards to social butterflies, Melissa Mahood is a monarch.

The bright and charismatic Woodside High School valedictorian, 17, knows that top grades mean nothing without top charm.

“My personality is more defining that what my grades are,” she said. “I’m not just the person who wants to gets good grades and boasts all about it. I genuinely like to help people and spread what I know to help someone else.”

Mahood, from Redwood City, is just one of 14 valedictorians who achieved a 4.1 GPA or higher during their four years at Woodside High. 

Mahood, a senior graduating with the class of 2011 next week, will travel south to attend the University of California, Los Angeles and study public relations.  Public relations is appealing, Mahood said, because connecting with people is vital to her personality.

“I like establishing unique relationships with everyone I meet,” Mahood said. “I like having a memory for each person and connecting with different people.”

Mahood has left a wonderful impression on Woodside, as a tutor she assisted fellow students with math skills while taking strenuous AP courses and somehow managed to find time to be an accomplished athlete.  She received the Scholar Athlete award, given to athletes who maintain a G.P.A of 4.0 or higher, all four years of high school, a success that she considers her greatest accomplishment.

“She’s a really hard worker, she’s really sociable, she’s very affectionate, she’s doggone smart and she’s beautiful,” said Melissa’s mother. “Not just on the outside but on the inside too.”

However, Mahood did not achieve all her success with ease.

“Softball pushed me to my very limit,” she said. “I wasn’t the star player at all, I worked my butt off.”

For Mahood, softball was one of the shaping forces in her life. Because she did not immediately excel on the varsity softball team, she created a resilience and persistence that helped her manage life’s barriers.

“That kind of gave me my push to work my hardest for everything else outside of the softball field,” Mahood said. “That was one big obstacle but now I know what pitch to throw off the field.”

Though she will major in public relations, Mahood said “the geeky side” of her forced her to minor in math, a subject that has long captivated her.

Mahood took several math and sciences classes, her favorites taught by Woodside physics and calculus teacher Stephanie Finander.

“Melissa exhibits the kind of love for mathematics that you seldom see in high school students,” Finander said. “Most students see math as work they have to do, some see it as useful, but Melissa can see that it is a window into the simplicity and complexity of our beautiful universe.”

This year Mahood received the Math Department Honors Award, was accepted into the National Honors Society for High School Scholars and received the recipient of the Kelly Colossey Memorial Scholarship.

In the next ten years, Mahood said she hopes to venture outside of the U.S and travel around the world. She hopes that one day she will travel to Spain because she has been learning Spanish since the third grade.

“I want to broaden my horizon about the world and open up my mind,” she said.

Mahood’s academic achievements and outstanding character have made her a role model for those seeking to succeed in their high school years. Her advice to incoming freshman, such as her younger brother, is simple.

“Be open to change and always do your best,” she said. “Never let yourself do a worse job than you know you can do better. Always do your best because then you can never be disappointed in yourself."