EDMONDS — Audrey Wilkinson, 16, is a junior at Edmonds-Woodway High School in the academically challenging International Baccalaureate (IB) program. She is active in theater and started a feminism club. Her dad, Eric Wilkinson, is a longtime television news reporter at KING 5 TV. Her mom, Katie Brown Wilkinson, owns a public relations company. She has a sister Olivia, 19.
Audrey has a 3.98 GPA.
Question: How’d that happen?
Answer: I got one A-minus in pre-calc last semester. I’m not ashamed to say I cried over it. It’s OK. I learned from it. I grew from it.
Q: Why IB instead of Running Start?
A: I pondered it a lot. I live out of the district and had to test in and make that choice for my future in eighth grade. You get prepared for a high level education at top performing colleges. Duke University is my dream school.
Q: Is it hard?
A: It’s definitely tough. They challenge you. That’s something I haven’t always gotten in school. I’m very much a voracious learner. I want a fast-paced classroom setting and open discussion … I’m very vocal, always raising my hand.
Q: Favorite class?
A: Definitely biology. It is the class I am most passionate about because I want to go into medicine to be able to help people and nurture them and heal them. I want to work with women and children, either in pediatrics or obstetrics and gynecology.
I work with Planned Parenthood now. It’s called Teen Council. I’m a peer educator. I teach health classes to homeless youth and high school and middle school students. It’s peer education, rather than being taught by someone older than you … it’s weird to think about your teachers talking about that. It’s more relatable and absorbable and comfortable.
I’m very involved with activism.
I lobbied for more comprehensive inclusive sex education in January to meet my legislators and look them in the eye and tell them why this work was important to me.
Q: Why is it important to you?
A: I went to a private school from kindergarten through eighth grade and we never really got any semblance of sex education. I did see firsthand what misinformation can cause because some members of the school were uncomfortable with having those like, you know, obviously somewhat awkward conversations.
Q: You can talk about sex without turning red?
A: I can. I can talk about it with my parents, very much so.
Q: Tell me about the feminism club.
A: I started it freshman year. We meet weekly. It’s a safe place for people to talk about things they don’t know who else to tell. You don’t always want to tell things like that to teachers or counselors or parents. It’s kind of like a support group in that way.
We did a menstrual hygiene drive that we gave to women’s shelters, to destigmatize things that people with uteruses go through.
Q: Do you try to explain these things to your dad?
A: I do. Sometimes he rolls his eyes.
Q: Do you like seeing your dad on TV?
A: I don’t really watch my dad. It’s so normal, an oh, my dad’s going to work type thing. He’s been working there as long as I’ve been alive. We watch his stories if he’s very moved by them or if it’s a live shot.
Q: Favorite newscast he did?
A: I thought this was the coolest thing in the world. It’s called Walrus Love and he won an award for it. It was about two walruses at the Point Defiance Zoo that mated for life. They would hold hands. Those walruses just had an affinity for each other.
Q: Do you want to find love like that someday?
A: I do. That’s what I aspire to. That’s the level. Yes. Absolutely.
Q: Who inspires you?
A: My parents have always been so supportive of everything I wanted to do, even in small ways like giving me rides or whatever, but also in more instrumental ways encouraging me that the sky is the limit. I’ve been doing theater since I was 5 or 6. My sister did it before me. We’re a very loud, passionate, energetic musical family.
Q: If you could be on stage with anyone dead or alive who would it be?
A: I want to say Audrey Hepburn because she’s my namesake. It’s always been someone I’ve grown up with as an icon. She’s obviously a very talented actress and there’s so many stories of her kindness offstage, making dinner for the cast and crew, things like like that I aim to emulate.
Q: What are three things in your fridge?
A: Smart Balance butter. I’m vegan, so I don’t eat dairy. It tastes exactly like butter, it’s so good. Orange juice, I drink it every morning. I also have Justin’s Peanut Butter Cups, dark chocolate, because I like them cold.
Q: What’s your pet peeve?
A: I really don’t like slow walkers, especially in the halls. I’ll be trying to get to my class and people just move at a sluggish pace. Some can’t move faster, and that’s completely OK. But people who station themselves in the hallways, I’ll never understand it.
Q: What do you like to do in your free time?
A: Crafty things like tie-dyeing and making bracelets.
Spending time with my dogs. Sugar is my baby, she’s a Maltese, we have our kinship. My other dog Ruby is a dachshund.
Q: Anything else I should have asked?
A: You covered the main bullet points.
Andrea Brown: abrown@heraldnet.com; 425-339-3443. Twitter @reporterbrown.
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