Editor’s note: The Auburn Reporter salutes some of the best graduating seniors from each of the school district’s four high schools. The top boy and girl graduates were selected by their respective schools.

Caitlyn Pritchard

Ambitious and charismatic, Caitlyn Pritchard is unmistakably a leader, someone who genuinely cares about her work and those she touches.

Taking charge, running the show fits her personality and puts her ahead of the pack.

“I’m pretty independent,” said Pritchard, who aspires to become an entrepreneur one day. “I’m also competitive with myself.”

That burning desire has pushed Pritchard to greater things. Through her excellence in academics and leadership, she will leave her mark at Auburn Riverside High School.

Pritchard, ranked No. 1 in her class, is one of only five seniors to post a 4.0 GPA at the school in ’09. Her efforts have attracted scholarship assistance and acceptance into the University of Washington Foster School of Business this fall.

She is the first in her family to go to college.

“It’s been great,” Pritchard said of her experience. “I’ve had to push myself. It came down to deciding whether I could take easy classes to maintain my 4.0 or if I needed to challenge myself.”

Pritchard, 18, took the tougher road and persevered.

In addition to taking on advanced courses, she worked in DECA for four years, serving as its president as a senior. Her business plan for a fitness center placed her third in an international DECA competition as a junior.

She and her DECA classmates were instrumental in launching an effective campaign against teenage drinking and drunken driving, a platform she represented on as a second runner-up in the ’09 Miss Auburn pageant.

A good dancer and public speaker, Pritchard also can swing a club. The precocious golfer recorded her first hole-in-one three years go on the par-3 16th at Auburn Golf Course.

“It was all luck,” she said with a grin. “No strategy involved on that one.”

Pritchard says her parents, Grant and Cathy – own own and operate Anytime Fitness – have been her driving force.

Their influence in the business world will no doubt help guide and shape her own course.

“I know I want to own my business but I don’t know what it might be, maybe something in graphic design,” she said.

“I know I will have a steady job when I turn my passion into a profession.”

Michael Fain

It seems advanced mathematics and computer science come naturally to Michael Fain.

So much in fact that he blew away the test-makers.

Fain scored a five out of a possible five in AP calculus and AP computer science exams – exceptional scores that earned the laid-back senior college credit.

Few 18-year-olds score that high, yet Fain methodically pulled it off. He humbly takes it all in stride.

“I like the idea of doing something hard for the accomplishment and for something to be proud of,” said Fain, a 3.98 student who is ranked 12th in his class at Auburn Riverside.

Fain, son of Howard and Margaret Fain, intends to take his considerable skills to the University of Washington where he plans to study electrical or mechanical engineering. He currently holds down a job working with computers.

“It’s not so much the computers (I like), but the use of them as tools,” he said. “It lets me model real-world situations.”

Fain often put himself to the test. In addition to handling accelerated courses, he served as president of the robotics club, performed well in the state chess championships and competed in the quiz bowl at Skills USA.

On the tennis court, he was four-year player, the Ravens’ No. 1 singles force.

The high school experience was something Fain will look back on favorably. The school challenged him and, in turn, he challenged himself.

“There are a lot of jumping through hoops that are meant to be put up,” he said of the journey.

Fain will turn to college and a chance to build something big in the footsteps of his father, an engineer.

As Fain reminds himself, “If you love your work, you never have to work a day in your life.”

====

COMMENCEMENT

• Auburn Riverside High School, 4 p.m., Saturday, Auburn Memorial Stadium

• Graduation class: 350