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

Daniel Montgomery

Quiet and bright, Daniel Montgomery is prepared to follow his own road to the next destination in his young life.

His next stop will be Haverford College, one of the country’s leading liberal arts schools, located on a peaceful campus just outside Philadelphia. It is a small and serene spot, the kind of place for a silent and exceptional student looking to follow his intrigue in biology and psychics.

“I found it has a strong microbiology department,” said Montgomery, a 4.0 student and one of the top seniors in Auburn Mountainview’s class of 2010. “I found it to be an interesting school.”

Montgomery, who turns 18 next week, will arrive this fall well prepared. His SAT scores were off the charts, his academic performance outstanding. He served as president of the Key Club and vice president of the Honors Society. He also played tennis and performed a role on the school’s robotics team.

Montgomery comes from a family of professionals. His mother, Judy Featherstone, is a family practice physician, and his father, Pat Montgomery, works with computers. His sister is studying biology as a pre-med student at Reed College in Portland.

Beyond the classroom, the young Montgomery has discovered the world with his family. Their extensive trips have taken them to places sprinkled around the globe, including Europe and the Orient. Montgomery also has taken international volunteering trips with Cross-Cultural Solutions, with the latest outreach mission finding the young man working in an orphanage in the central East African nation of Tanzania.

“I’ve learned about other cultures, how different people live, how friendly people can be and how less advanced some societies are,” he said. “It’s interesting to see how other people live.”

The humble Montgomery isn’t so bold to say he will come up with a breakthrough cure in his preferred field of science some day. But what he intends to do is make an impact by serving others.

“I want to help other people and improve myself,” he said. “I want to do something that makes a difference with other people.”

Raquel Robayo-Krause

Music moves her, but love for water and animals is her calling.

One day Raquel Robayo-Krause hopes to work in harmony with dolphins and whales as a marine mammal veterinarian.

“It is something I’ve always been interested in,” said Robayo-Krause, a 4.0 senipr who is bound for Western Washington University to study marine biology on scholarship this fall. “It will be so much fun to work with animals in a zoo somewhere along the West Coast.”

At Bellingham, she will get her chance to work by the bay. Her experiences at Auburn Mountainview will prepare her well for the opportunity. She excelled in advanced-placement courses and scored high in her SATs. She last received a grade lower than a “A” in elementary school.

Outside the classroom, Robayo-Krause swam and played on the Lions’ state-class water polo club, serving as a senior captain.

She also has done community service for the youth council, worked as a lifeguard and has been involved in Girl Scouts since she was a little girl. She will accompany the Scouts and family on a tour of Europe this summer

Musically, Robayo-Krause has flourished. She is the daughter of a register nurse, an accomplished harpist, and also plays the piano and accordion, an instrument she took up in honor of her father Gary, who died of cancer when she was 3.

“I found his old accordion in the closet,” she said. “I thought it would be cool to play it – in his memory.”

Robayo-Krause enjoys all types of music.

“It takes work but it comes easy to me,” she said of her skills. “It’s nice to get lost in my music. It’s a big part of my life.”