ESHS class features co-valedictorians, salutatorian

Three’s company, not a crowd when it comes to the tight-knit senior class at Eureka Springs High School.

When the final senior class order was announced in April good friends Ilima “Rowan” Beattie and Riley Chapman were tied in the No. 1 spot in the class with a 4.18 GPA. With the tie, classmate and friend Shiloh Goodman was named salutatorian with a 4.0217 GPA.

The three will say goodbye to their classmates and teachers during the ESHS graduation, set for 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 17. “When there is 50 people in the class and you can recall everyone’s name around you … I mean there’s fond memories with everyone,” Chapman said. “It’s going to be cool to be able to go over those one last time when we graduate.”

CO-VALEDICTORIAN

For Beattie, it was her mom, Lilia Stemet, who provided her the needed inspiration through her senior year.

Her mom, who was busy during much of the year working toward her doctoral degree, was also the perfect study partner, she said.

“It was definitely very inspiring,” Beattie said of watching her mom working long hours on her new degree. “A lot of times we would do homework together. I think she pulled a lot more all-nighters than I did, and sometimes I would wake up and she’d be still in her chair typing, working on her thesis. Then I’d make her breakfast and then go to school and tell her to go to bed.

“She is really a workaholic, and yeah, it was super inspiring to see all the passion and effort she put in and the results of all of that effort.”

That effort and academic focus quickly became a part of Beattie’s routine in high school, even moreso during her senior year when she juggled many extracurricular activities en route to sharing the co-valedictorian role with her good friend Chapman.

“We both kind of knew we were at the top and we’re pretty close friends, so we had a lot of classes together and decided that we didn’t really care who was going to get it because we knew that we both had a shot of getting it,” Beattie said. “We ended up both tying, but yeah, we knew that we had a chance at the top and we kind of just wanted to see who would be there, but we weren’t too like set on being first.”

Neither really wanted to beat the other out for the top spot, so it’s sort of fitting they tied for the top spot, Beattie said.

“Like I took a couple AP classes that were different from his, but most of them were the same,” she said. “I don’t think either of us really wanted to beat the other person because we didn’t want the other one to feel bad. So, whenever I decided to take more AP classes, he would match me, or if he wanted to take more I would take as many as he did. We always made sure we took the same amount So, it was kind of impossible.”

In addition to being involved in various clubs, Beattie also participated on the school’s quiz bowl and mountain biking teams.

“I made sure not to involve myself in too many things because I’ve seen students who went to try to be the president of like four to five clubs and I saw how it wasn’t working for them,” she said. “They weren’t able to put time into pretty much any of them because they were so divided amongst like all the things they were doing, and so I made sure to only go for leadership roles in a couple clubs… I didn’t try to run for leadership roles in class council or student council or in the sports I was in because I knew that it would just be too much.”

After an extensive search of possible landing spots for college, Beattie chose Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, a small liberal arts school, she said, adding that she is going to major in biology and “possibly explore engineering.”

“It’s right outside of Philadelphia … with like a little under 2,000 people,” she said. “But, it’s right next to other larger colleges, so I’ll be surrounded by a lot of college people.

“So, I spent a lot of my summer and early during my fall semester looking at colleges, and I applied to a lot of other ones. …. I started getting a lot of mail from different colleges, and I searched this one up, along with a bunch of other liberal arts colleges and public colleges and private, and I just really liked, first, the location. I have family up there. Two, I liked the idea of a liberal arts college where they make you take not just classes inside your major, but a lot of other subjects as well. So, I would be in classes with a lot of other majors and a lot of other people and learning a lot more than just the science that I’m going for because I don’t want to just focus on one thing. I want to like branch out. I also really liked that they had a strong engineering and science department.”

CO-VALEDICTORIAN

Chapman has attended schools in Eureka Springs since his preschool days, something that isn’t lost on him in the days leading up to Saturday’s graduation ceremony.

Like Beattie, Chapman said he and his co-valedictorian knew what they needed to do to stay tied — or close to it — atop the class rankings.

“So, this summer when I was selecting courses, me and were talking to each other about what we’re gonna take, because we both knew that we had close GPAs and we wanted to see who was gonna do it and who would take more courses, and we ended up both taking the same amount of courses, like the high-level courses,” Chapman said, adding he likes sharing the top honors with Beattie.

“I actually am a really big fan of it because she has worked just as hard, if not harder, than me on it and I think that she deserves it just as much as I did. … We pushed each other to take more courses and do better.”

While he was excited about being named valedictorian, his parents, Ryan and Jamie, were probably even more happy, Chapman said.

“I was super excited, but my family was probably more excited than I was,” Chapman said.

While his parents wanted him to always do his best, finishing at the top was never something he was pushed to do, he said.

“My parents let me do whatever I needed to do, but they always kept me in line,” Chapman said. “They never pushed me to be the top of the class. They just wanted me to do a good job.”

Chapman will attend Washington University in St. Louis this fall. He plans to major in environmental engineering.

“My friend told me about WashU and showed me the campus,” Chapman said. “I thought it was a super cool campus. … It’s in the center of the country, and one thing I want to do is travel. So, I feel it’s a good starting point for any future endeavors.”

SALUTATORIAN

It’s no secret who has been the main anchor during Goodman’s academic journey: her dad, Ralph.

“He’s the one that’s just always been there for me,” Goodman said. “He’s been there to help me keep going. He’s always given me good advice, help me figure everything out.”

Goodman admits she was a bit surprised to learn she was named salutatorian of her class, mainly because she knew Beattie and Chapman were ahead of her in the class rankings.

However, when the two tied as co-valedictorians, that opened the door for her to claim the No. 2 spot in her class with a 4.0217 GPA.

“I was pretty surprised and I was pretty excited about it,” Goodman said.

Her dad was proud, too, she said.

“He just told me he was proud of everything I’ve accomplished,” Goodman said. “My dad always made it where like it’s important to him, but it’s not that important as long as I’m trying. I was focused on trying to get the good grades, and he was always proud of me for it, too.”

While maintaining good grades, Goodman was also a member of the ESHS soccer and mountain biking teams and the National Honor Society and held a part-time job as a tour guide for Ozark Mountain Zipline, she said.

“Sometimes it can feel a little overwhelming, but I mean, I felt like I had a pretty good balance between everything, and keeping it going,” she said.

Goodman said she plans to attend Northwest Arkansas Community College this fall and focus on an associate of applied science degree. Her plans are to eventually become a radiologic technician.

“I’m going to attend NWACC, take my prerequisite courses there, and then hopefully transfer to UAMS in Fayetteville to do their radiology program,” Goodman said. “Right now, I want to definitely do something in radiology. I like the idea of being able to travel doing it, and there are different things I can do for that, like sonography, something along those lines. I’m kind of still figuring out what direction I’m going in.”

The close relationships of ESHS helped her along the way and will be something she’ll keep in mind when she makes that graduation walk Saturday morning.

And while glancing at the crowd, if she makes eye contact her her dad, she wouldn’t be surprised if there are emotions in his eyes.

“I definitely think he will,” Goodman said about her dad being emotional. “I mean, he’s already mentioned it quite a few times in the last couple of weeks. He definitely will.”