Courtney Ferry is brilliant on the viola, plays on the school’s tennis team, loves unpacking knotty math problems.

Doesn’t do all three at the same time, mind you. Come to think of it, though, if anybody were capable of achieving such a feat, it would probably be this 18-year-old Auburn High School senior.

For this super bright kid, school has never been hard.

As for those two-to-three hours she spends on homework every night, she digs the work.

“A lot of people say school is boring or hard, and it can be hard at times. But it’s not really hard if you are just willing to put the work into it and actually do it,” Ferry said.

What free time she has she likes to spend hiking in parks, practicing her viola and, you know, hanging out with her large group of friends. But having one or two friends over and hanging out with them, hey, that’s good, too, she said.

“The Tacoma Youth Symphony has been my biggest commitment because it takes up every Saturday for the whole school year. In the last couple years, it’s been four hours or more. It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it. I just make sure that I spend as much time with my friends and family as I can,” Ferry said.

This fall the Auburn native heads to Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University, where she will major double major in music and actuarial science.

“Actuarial science will be my major,” Ferry said, adding that, no surprise, after college she hopes to be an insurance actuary.

Ferry, a 4.0 student, has a four-year, $56,000 Academic Scholarship from ASU waiting for her, a $1,000 scholarship that recognizes her considerable musical gifts, and a $750 per semester scholarship.

She’ll miss Auburn, but, she’s ready to strike the tent and move on.

“I have been very fortunate to have had very good teachers at this school. I don’t think I’ve had one I disliked. Mr. Johnson who was my orchestra teacher before he retired in my sophomore year, has been very influential in my life. In fact, he’s the director of the Tacoma Youth Symphony. My language arts teacher, Mrs. Asfour, has also been very influential and is a good friend.”

Here’s one graduating senior’s advice for incoming AHS students.

“A lot of kids come here and think they can slack off and still pass with good grades, not do as well their freshman and sophomore years. Then they realize that their grades in high school actually matter, but by then they can’t go where they actually wanted to because they didn’t think it mattered at the beginning. So, I would say, do the work: it sucks sometimes, but it’s worth it.”

Courtney’s parents are Jackie and Tom Ferry.

Gifted on, off the court

Like Devan Minch’s friend, Courtney, enough dreams and clear avenues to make them happen bump about in his 18-year-old head to baffle and terrify any slackers out there.

When the AHS senior moves on to the University of Washington this fall, it’ll be to study business, to get into the prestigious Foster School of Business, and major in entrepreneurship.

“I already have my own online clothing business. I’m going to link it one day with some of my social media accounts and move some of my outlets into the malls,” Minch said. “I understand life is pretty stressful if you work all the time, so I want to be able to set my own hours.”

This week Minch graduates from high school with a 3.94 GPA.

But not only is this young man academically gifted, he’s also brilliant on the basketball court. It didn’t hurt that he spent most of the summer days of his childhood playing basketball and being on select teams with names like Splash! and Emerald City.

“I consider myself an athlete,” Minch said. “I’ve played basketball since the fifth grade, and I’ve been with the same group of guys all the way up to my senior year at Auburn High School. I created a bond with all those guys, and I am not going to forget them when I go on to college.

“What happened was I found academics more interesting for me than basketball, and I found I had better opportunities waiting for me after college,” Minch said.

His favorite subjects at AHS were language arts and mathematics.

“I enjoy writing, but that depends on what I am writing about. If you get to write freely about what you like instead of just on a poem or something, that’s one of my strengths … “Once I got to precalculus it got a bit more challenging. That was the first time I actually studied math after school,” Minch said with a laugh.

For two years at AHS, Minch was a member of Troy Crew, a group of upper class men that gets together a couple days each summer to learn all about welcoming incoming freshmen.

“Outside of school I just love to spend as much time as I can with my family and friends. I love camping,” Minch said.