MILL CREEK
Julia Ko hopes her days in student government at Jackson High School made it a better place.
Ko, who will be one of 400-plus students to graduate on June 13, started out in the Freshman Congress and served as senior class and junior class president the last two years. She’s helped organize food drives and increase student involvement in clubs in that time.
“I really like my ASB (Associated Student Body) class even though it’s at 6:30 in the morning,” Ko said. “It’s really early. That’s obviously because I’m passionate about student government.
“It’s not something that I do for an application,” said Ko, who will attend the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business in the fall. “It’s something I do because I really love it.”
Ko and her fellow student leaders tried to provide support for student activities from clubs to sports to the prom. Jackson, which opened in 1994, is the newest high school in the Everett School District and is still establishing traditions.
“It’s history is still being built and its traditions are still being built,” counselor Sarah Williams said. “She played a big role in that. She’s always a hard worker, during the bumps she always pushes through.”
One of those bumps was a controversy over silly names on T-shirts handed out by student leaders for spirit week in March.
“It was so blown out of proportion,” Ko said. “A couple people who went on urban dictionary — which is not a reliable site anyway — they got these ideas that we were really perverted or something and so they went to the news stations. They didn’t come talk to the school, they went directly to KOMO, to KING. They made this huge deal out of nothing. It was a nightmare for everyone because we do so much work for the school and this is what’s getting attention. That was really unfortunate and a headache.”
Besides her student government activities, Ko is interested in art, music and dance, things that she grew up around: Her dad, Kwang, has a keen interest in art; her mom, Yujin, has a degree in fashion; and her older sister by 11 years, Vivian, was a pianist.
Ko plays the piano and three Korean instruments, including the zither, a stringed instrument.
Her interest in Korean dance took her all over the globe. She performed with Morning Star, a Lynnwood-based Korean dance troupe, in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Korea, Brazil, Paraguay, Canada and the West Coast of the U.S.
“One thing I’ll probably never forget was when I was in Kenya at an all-girls school,” Ko said. “The people I met were probably the most ambitious people I’ve met in my life. There was this joy about them. They have these plans. They have no money whatsoever. They’re ambitious and want to come to America and go to medical school and go to law school. It’s more inspirational just because it reminds me that I can do anything.”
Ko, who also played tennis at Jackson, puts her full effort in what’s in front of her.
“From the time she walked in the door, it has always been a giving, charismatic, positive optimism-filled life that she just exuded here at Jackson,” Williams said. “She is one of those students where it’s an honor to call her one of our graduates because she has made such a positive impact on our community. She gives her time and doesn’t expect anything back from it.”
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