Star Students Name By Sawnee-Cumming Optimist Club

CUMMING, GA — The Sawnee-Cumming Optimist Club recently honored Samiksha Gaherwar as the 2021-2022 Optimist Star Student, the Optimist Club version of student of the year. She is a senior at Lambert High School. Jaden Findley, a senior at West Forsyth High, was named runner-up.

The Optimist Star Student Program recognizes outstanding high school students who demonstrate academic achievement, leadership, and good citizenship.

Samiksha has a weighted GPA of 4.7 and is ranked first among more than 700 students in her class. In a single SAT sitting, she scored a 1580 on a 1600 scale. She will have completed 27 AP classes by the end of the school year.

Highly involved in student government and other school activities, Samiksha is a member of the National Honor Society and the National English Honor Society, serves as Reading Bowl captain, and plays on the varsity flag football team. She is chapter president of the Model United Nations Association as well as the chapter secretary and serves on the National Executive Council of the Future Business Leaders of America. Also involved in Optimist activities, Samiksha is a member of the Junior Optimist Club. She participated seven times in the Optimist oratorical competition, advancing to the zone level; and competed twice in the Optimist essay contest where she advanced to the district level.

Samiksha also focuses on the community. She is national youth director of EKAL Vidyalaya USA, an international non-profit that has built more than 100,000 schools in rural south Asia. She has a degree in Kathak dance and teaches dance to neighborhood kids, worked with her mother leading a project that stitched 1400 masks during the peak of the pandemic, and tutored Bhutanese refugees in Clarkston.

Jaden has a weighted GPA of 4.0. He is a senator in the Student Government Association at West Forsyth High, a member of the National Honor Society, where he tutors students for two hours a week; the Technology Student Association, the Future Business Leaders of America, the Black Organization for Leadership Development, Varsity eSports Club, the Robotic Club, and the school Welcome Committee. Also involved in Optimist activities, Jaden is lieutenant governor of the Junior Optimist Club Southeast Gateway district. Active in community volunteering, Jaden is a leader and mentor in the Alpharetta Methodist Church student mission group, participates his church’s involvement in North Fulton Christian Charities, Operation Christmas Child, and Alpharetta Methodist student life groups and mission trips.

“Shamiksha and Jaden are aspiring and inspiring young people and models of optimism," said Grady Howard, chairman of the club’s star student committee. "They are well-rounded, conscientious, and contribute time and talent to the community. They are the epitome of star students.”