Park City High School graduates’ walks across the stage don’t differ much as they collect their degrees, shake hands, and smile at photographers immortalizing the moment. But that only belies the unique journey each took to the big moment.
Still, from the 2024 class valedictorian to a one-time dropout who a year ago didn’t believe he had a prayer of graduating, several students who reflected on their experiences had one thing in common: They didn’t do it alone.
Hale Nickell
Hale Nickell, Park City High School’s valedictorian this year, said he’s been far from a straight-A student, and his GPA is not 4.0.
“I’ve gotten a few B’s, and a few B-minuses,” he said.
Maybe not traditionally perfect, but he looked back at his experiences fondly, and he looked toward his future with high expectations and the prospect of becoming a Maverick-esque pilot after he graduates from the Naval Academy, which he will be attending at the end of the month with plans to study aerospace engineering.
Initially from Denver, Nickell said the outdoors have always been a second home to him and he’s always been a “mountain guy,” as his dad raised him that way. He put on his first pair of skis at 3, and hasn’t missed a winter since.
When his family moved to Park City 14 years ago, that didn’t change.
“I love it here. I love biking in Park City,” he said. “I love everything about the outdoors.”
He was drawn to the school’s mountain bike team, on which he learned a lesson that proved as valuable as anything academic.
“A lot of people think that mountain biking is a solo sport, and in a lot of ways it is, but that’s being disingenuous,” Nickell said. “I’ve seen people who mountain bike only by themselves, and who are only focused on themselves mountain biking, and those people never go very far. The real fun in mountain biking is biking with other people, getting better with other people. … You can go it alone, but you’ll never make it as far as you could with a team.”
The same attitude helped him in other areas.
In robotics club, he came to rely on his buddy Tavian Robertson, an ace programmer. When Nickell has struggled through AP courses, he said he’s leaned on his friend Alexander Kent, who’s shared a similar class schedule through the years.
“He’s been a really huge part of the reason I’ve been successful in high school,” Nickell said. “He is way smarter than I am. I want to make that clear. He has helped me at every step of the way.”
While Nickell worked hard to become the valedictorian in an accomplished graduating class, he’s not the only student who’s given his all. Other students faced social, educational or mental health challenges to find themselves wearing a graduation cap.
Q Atkinson
Q Atkinson felt out of place when he moved to Park City three years ago. While he feels he’s gotten used to it, things were a bit foreign for him when he arrived from Salt Lake City.
“Just a lot of rich kids I had never really been around,” he said. “It’s kind of hard.”
He said his stepmom and stepsister took him under their wing in hopes of setting him up with better opportunities. He likes video games, hanging out, working out and — more recently — training for the U.S. Army, in which he’s enlisted.
He plans to enroll in the University of Utah online while he’s deployed in New York, and he wants to become an Army Ranger and pursue a degree in zoology.
His path to graduation was not a traditional one, and it certainly wasn’t easy.
“I dropped out my ninth-grade year because I didn’t really want to do school anymore,” Atkinson said.
Experiences from his time in Salt Lake had left him with a bitter taste for education.
Abandoning school wasn’t the answer, however.
“It’s not fun. You have nothing to do,” Atkinson said. “All your friends are either in school when you’re dropped out and you’ve got to wait for them to get out of school to hang out, or your parents are upset because you don’t have go to go school anymore.”
His stepmom and Park City High School counselor Dara Smith helped him navigate the Board of Education and enroll in his senior year.
“No one thought I was going to graduate,” Atkinson said. “Then about halfway through my senior year, about third and fourth quarters, is when I really stepped my game up and worked on myself.”
He learned he needed a diploma to join the military, and he didn’t want to stand in his own way. He said he saw the way his life was going — a future of eight-hour-a-day jobs he wouldn’t enjoy and dead ends.
“I didn’t want to end up like that,” he said.
With the help of the Park City Learning Center and other programs, he was able to catch up.
“Ended up getting my shit together,” he said.
He may have lost his February break to homework, his grades may not be perfect, and he may not have his cap and gown out of reluctance to pay his school fees, but he did it. He said he’s grateful to his friends and family as well as Park City education programs supporting him.
Jessica Loya
From the U.S. Department of Education’s report on peer harassment in the Park City School District to the state Legislature’s bills targeting programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in K-12 schools, Park City High School graduate and Latinos in Action President Jessica Loya has seen a lot of concerning things in her senior year.
Still, she described her overall educational experience in the district as positive.
“It’s definitely not been a straight line. Of course, I’ve had to ask for help when I needed it academically or seek it emotionally from friends or family that supported me,” she said. “I’m really grateful for a lot of different programs and community organizations that were always there for me. … There’s just so many that I can’t name them all.”
She said that when she was younger, she benefited from Park City Education Foundation’s Youth United, previously named the Solomon Fund, and has continued to appreciate the organization’s work as an intern and volunteer.
As a second-generation immigrant, Loya said her involvement in student programs has been helpful by allowing her and her fellow students spaces where they felt safe.
“It’s places where we’re able to ask questions and learn things like how to advocate for ourselves outside of the classroom as well and kind of just seek that extra guidance that sometimes first-generation students need, whether it’s because their parents don’t understand the school system in the U.S. as much, so it’s really nice to have those adults around or just classmates that are going through the same things.”
Loya also served on the district’s equity committee, though she said they faced struggles due to recent legislation “which made some of the conversations a bit more difficult to have.”
“I think they have a long way ways to go, but they’re building the action plan setting those goals for when things will be accomplished,” she said about the district.
In addressing her concerns with the current state of the programs that have helped her and the threats they and the students they help face, Loya said the district can make it clear to students how they can report situations that make them feel unsafe.
The school district also is working to resolve issues raised in the Office of Civil Rights report in March.
“The reporting system needs to be really clear and concise and consistent around the school district so that as students get older they know what the process is,” she said. “And they also know that there will be follow-through and consequences when things happen.”
While she said the school district has a bigger impact on students’ lives, state legislators can help by removing legal barriers on programs meant to help minority students.
Loya has yet to declare a major, but she’s headed for the University of Utah, where she’s considering pursuing international studies and business.
“I kind of want to do something where I can utilize my strengths in language,” she said.
Jake Diamond
Jake Diamond is a personal testament of what addressing an individual student’s needs can mean.
“I always wasn’t the brightest in school,” Diamond said. “I’d goof around a lot, and I’d have a hard time focusing, and I wouldn’t get along with teachers very well.”
Things didn’t change for him after he progressed through elementary and middle school, and he started his time in Park City High School with the same issues. He said they became worse as he was older and his teachers expected more maturity.
“I feel like I was just acting like I was a younger kid,” Diamond said. “They don’t want to put up with me.”
That’s when he remembered Park City High School Assistant Principal and 504 coordinator Jamie Weekes getting involved.
“She would pull me out of class a bunch,” Diamond said. “Eventually, she introduced this program called a 504 program.”
Diamond explained that 504 plans are different accommodation levels meant to help students whose physical or mental health constitutes a need for different kinds of help than other students might receive.
He started getting extra time on his assignments and tests, and his entire school experience changed.
“It gave me more confidence. I didn’t feel like I felt very rushed,” Diamond said. “I wanted to take my time. It felt like I could take my time on these tests now.”
He said teachers who once found him difficult noted the change. The fortitude Diamond showed as a varsity baseball player began to show in the classroom.
Now, not only is he graduating, but he’s going to what he said is one of his “dream colleges.”
“I’m going to (Texas Christian University),” he said. “I honestly never thought I’d get in in a million years.”