Adversity? No problem

EVERETT – Stacy and Maria Thompson seem like the type of cheerful young women you would expect to win awards for leadership.

The identical twins are quick to smile, trade friendly barbs with each other, volunteer for their community and hold benevolent aspirations to help little children and animals in their future careers.

It’s only after learning of their childhood, filled with neglect, poverty and instability, that you can appreciate the adversity they have overcome.

In the past six years, the girls figure they have been uprooted 27 times. Their rough home life caused them to miss sleep, go to bed hungry and frequently miss school.

“It’s hard to learn in that situation,” Stacey Thompson said at the Everett Boys &Girls Club. Raising her voice above the noise of youngsters playing volleyball and air hockey, she punctuated her statement with the tone of a survivor. “But we kept on going.”

Through it all, the Thompsons say they kept hope alive by leaning on each other for strength and encouragement.

The 17-year-old girls (Stacey is 22 seconds older) were among 10 high school students who won a Mayor’s Youth Achievement Award given by Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson on Wednesday evening.

A selection committee, who whittled down a list of about 50 nominees for the award, cited the twins’ perseverance in the face of hardship for the reason they were chosen.

“It would be really easy for them to sit around with a chip on their shoulders, but they’re really upbeat and a couple of really good kids,” said Jeremy Oshie, a director at the Everett Boys &Girls Club on 12th Street, where the girls have volunteered.

They started going to the club during teen nights about three years ago, when they first moved to Everett. They say they found a warm environment at the club and got the kind of adult guidance from staff members that they were missing at home.

Eventually, P.J. Parsons, the Everett club’s executive director, became the twins’ legal guardian.

Maria now is employed by the club’s day care center, working part time after school. She hopes to earn an associate degree in early childhood education so she can become a certified preschool teacher.

Stacey, meanwhile, takes classes with the Center for Career Alternatives and is working toward her GED. She hopes to one day be a veterinarian.

This year’s batch of winners includes two Eagle Scouts, a multilingual young woman who wants to practice international law, a wrestling champion, a girls basketball team captain and a Mariner High School senior with a 4.0 GPA who wants to become an engineer for NASA or the Air Force.

The students were honored for outstanding academic, civic and athletic achievements.

Their resumes boast impressive GPAs, enrollment in advanced placement courses and leadership positions in student clubs.

They were also recognized for clearing hurdles that life put before them.

Cole Anderson, a senior at Everett High School, began to see his grades and interest in soccer and wrestling plummet after his father died from a heart attack last summer.

Since then, he has regrouped, finishing his senior paper, bringing his grades up and excelling once again in sports.

Lauren Bennett, a senior at Henry Jackson High School, helped her alcoholic father reach sobriety, and Erica Hornyak, a senior at Everett High School, lost her mother from a brain aneurysm when Erica was just 6 years old.

Joel Star, owner of the Flying Pig restaurant and Tailgater Joe’s sports bar in Everett, was one of the judges in the competition.

Starr, who came up hard, paying rent when he was 16, said the biographies of some of the students were inspiring.

“Adversity is everywhere,” he said. “To read about the accomplishments of these kids under adversity really would open some eyes.”

2007 Mayors Achievement Award winners

Stacey Thompson

Age: 17

School: Center for Career Alternatives

Goals: Earn a GED certificate, then pursue education to become a veterinarian.

Maria Thompson

Age: 17

School: Everett High School

Goals: Earn an early childhood education certificate to become a preschool teacher, or work with music.