Stearns never counted on being Tokay’s valedictorian

By Julie Z. Giese
News-Sentinel staff writer

Hoday Stearns never aimed to be the top student at Tokay High School.

Hoday Stearns

The 17-year-old senior just wanted to do her best, she said.

“It’s nice that it came. It’s an honor,” she said in her soft voice.

She credits her success to her parents, Pete and Tatsumi Stearns.

“My parents instilled the importance of education,” she said. “I just made myself work harder and harder.”

Stearns was selected as Tokay’s valedictorian with a 4.3 grade point average.

The quiet teen has lent her academic skills to the school’s Science Olympiad team, which has earned a berth for three consecutive years to the national contest.

She fondly remembers winning the NorCal Science Olympiad Finals by four points, defeating Sacramento’s Rio Americano High School. “It was fun,” she said.

Stearns also participated in other activities, including Academic Decathlon, Japanese Club, Link Crew and California Scholarship Federation.

Outside of school, she helps out in a computer lab and plays the piano, she said.

Stearns said she’s a typical teen-ager who sometimes doesn’t want to study. Instead, she’ll watch Pokemon and read Japanese comic books. One day she dreams of creating her own comic book, she said.

The teen plans to attend to University of California, Berkeley, where she’ll study engineering in the fall. She hopes one day to become an aerospace engineer.

She currently lives in Lodi with her parents, three younger brothers and a younger sister.