Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
Amanda Basham and Bryan Warth have been selected as Sweet Home High School’s nominees for Linn County Junior First Citizen of the Year.
The two seniors will join nominees from other county high schools on Tuesday, Oct. 16, at the Lebanon Boys and Girls Club, where they will be interviewed by a panel that will select the county Junior First Citizen. The county honoree will be announced at an Albany Rotary Club luncheon at noon Tuesday, Nov. 6 at the Linn County Fair and Expo Center in Albany.
Last year’s county honoree was Sweet Home’s Erika Snow.
Basham, 17, who was one of three boys and four girls who applied, said she was “shocked” that she was chosen. She said she figured the interview committee would select some other students who have been very active in the school.
“When I got the letter (informing her that she was selected), I couldn’t think,” she said. “I was in shock.”
Basham is the daughter of Michael and Lisa Basham. She’s lived in the Sweet Home area for 15 1/2 years and attended local schools from Little Promises and Hawthorne on up.
She said she’s interested in attending Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where she’d like to major in nutrition or become a personal trainer.
She’s been involved in a variety of civic activities as a princess on this year’s Sportsman’s Holiday Court, and helping with May Week Cleanups and the Lebanon Tree Sale.
She’s been heavily involved in athletics, playing basketball and volleyball in junior high and high school, participating in dance in junior high and high school and spending one year as a cheerleader. She’s also been a three-year varsity letter winner in track, qualifying for the state championships last spring in the intermediate hurdles. This fall she decided to go out for cross-country and has been the top runner on a largely inexperienced but talented squad that is aiming for a berth in the state meet.
Basham says she would like to continue running in college, either as a member of a team or on the intramural level.
She said she enjoys running, hiking, riding quads and horses, playing the guitar and singing. She’s been on the honor roll since her freshman year and is pursuing an honors diploma.
She’s also a model, represented by John Casablanca’s of Beaverton, and said she has been involved in a number of photo shoots and fashion shows.
“I have such a variety of interests that I don’t belong to a ‘group,'” she said. “I have friends, or even just acquaintances, of all types of people.”
As a member of the class board and leadership class, Basham designed the 2007 May Week T-shirts, created the Class of 2007’s graduation poster, is heading up the Powderpuff Football Game for this year’s Homecoming Week, and has helped plan a modeling skit for an assembly, fire drills, dances and more.
Warth, also 17, also said he was surprised that he was selected, saying he applied basically because “it looks good on a resume.”
“I thought it would be good experience, going through the interview,” he said. “It would get you ready for real life, the pressures you’d face.”
The son of Fred and Stephanie Warth of Cascadia, he hopes to get involved in the natural resources field, perhaps in logging, he said.
“I hope to go to some sort of trade school, ” he said. “I’m not really set on what track, though. Definitely something outdoorsish.”
In high school, he’s maintained nearly perfect grades, and has taken a lot of shop classes to develop his metal- and woodworking and mechanical skills.
“I’m trying to get as many skills as possible for free,” he said.
He’s served as the student representative on the School Board and has co-directed the community cleanup activities on Pride Day during May Week.
He’s serving as second vice president in the student government and has helped plan assemblies and run elections.
Warth, who’s lived in the area his whole life, said he hasn’t been able to be involved in sports because his family lives “15 miles out of town – commuting is hard.”
So he’s been involved in running a firewood business, for which, he says, he’s cut “over 100 cords of wood.”
He also helps with his family’s cattle and bees and “I do a lot of dirt bike riding.”
“I live far out of town, in the country,” he wrote in his application. “Therefore I have been blessed to be able to experience many, many things that fewer and fewer are able to experience. I have also had the opportunity to work and play in the outdoors, therefore being a little more well-rounded than some.”
Teacher Steve Thorpe, who is advising the Leadership Class this term, said the choice among the applicants was “difficult.”
The selections were made by a four-member interview committee composed of two certified staff, one classified staff and one community member.
“They were all outstanding,” he said of the teens interviewed by the committee. “I think we could have selected any of those kids.
“It was just in this situation, when we put the applications and interviews together, this is how it turned out. Any (of the applicants) could have earned it.”