Everitt, Sanchez lead AHS honor graduates
By Melinda L. Lucas
Albany High School recently announced honor students for the 2025 senior class, with Avery Everitt named valedictorian and Holden Sanchez salutatorian.
Nine other seniors were named as honor students as part of the top 25 percent of the class, which has 45 members.
Everitt, the daughter of Mark and Jennifer Everitt, has a four-year overall grade average of 104.078.
Sanchez has an overall GPA of 102.282. He is the son of Matthew and Heidi Sanchez.
Other honor students in rank order are Will LeMay, John Birkla, Jonathan Coody, Ethan Green, Gabby Lopez, Macie Breeden, Ben Barwon, Kenzie Neve, and Ann Davis.
Local students earn the traditional grade point average based on the numeric grades for each class over their four-year high school career. However, it is actually a weighted grade point system based on core classes that is used to determine class rank.
Honors and dual credit courses receive more weighted points than regular core classes.
The seniors will graduate on Friday, May 23 starting at 7:00 p.m. in the main gym at the high school.
Both Everitt and Sanchez will present graduation speeches.
Valedictorian
Avery Everitt has attended Albany schools since kindergarten.
She has been active in both athletics and academics during high school, participating in track all four years, as well as cross country, basketball, and volleyball.
Everitt has also participated in UIL journalism events all four years, advancing to the state academic meet in feature writing as a sophomore. She qualified for the regional level two years each in news writing, copy editing, and editorial writing.
With writing obviously one of her strong qualities, Everitt has served as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Lions Roar, as a senior, and helped earn Silver Stars for the publication the last two years, as well as a Bronze Star when she was a sophomore.
She was also the recipient of numerous ILPC state awards for writing and page design for The Lions Roar.
The valedictorian is a member of the National Honor Society and served as president this year. She was class vice president as a junior and a student council class representative this year.
Everitt plans to attend Texas Tech University in the fall, majoring in accounting and finance.
Salutatorian
Born in Rochester, New York, Holden Sanchez attended Albany schools for the last three years of high school. Prior to that, he was at Poteet and Pleasanton high schools.
A member of the National Honor Society, he served as parliamentarian of the organization this year.
Sanchez is copy/news editor for The Lions Roar, as well as being the entertainment editor. He has won several awards at the annual ILPC competition for high school publications and has helped the AHS newspaper win a Silver Star the last two years.
This year’s salutatorian has qualified for the UIL regional academic meet each spring since he was a sophomore – three consecutive years in computer science – the last two as part of an advancing team. He also advanced in ready writing as a junior.
Sanchez plans to attend Penn State to attain a business degree and then go to law school, hopefully at Georgetown Law in D.C.
