RHS Salutatorian Dayna Lake also earns Scholar Athlete of the Year
By Bill Tamburrino
Dayna Lake, one of Ramona High School’s 2013 salutatorians, also earned the school’s 2013 Scholar Athlete of the Year award.
Lake earned four varsity letters in tennis and was a team captain on the first RHS Lady Bulldog tennis team to win a league title. She earned All Valley League in tennis. Lake then became the first female tennis player from RHS to advance to the CIF individuals’ tournament.
Her academic achievements gave her a 4.45 grade point average in college preparatory, honors and advanced placement classes. For her efforts, Lake was honored as the Farmers Insurance Scholar Athlete of 2013 and is the first from Ramona High School to earn that award. The program recognizes 22 student athletes in California, based on excellence in athletics, academics and character.
The salutatorian started playing tennis when she was 4 years old and her parents, Valerie and Marty, have been there supporting her academic and athletic endeavors since day one.
Lake will be attending California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo in the fall and has talked to the tennis coach. She plans on going out for the tennis team if she can work out her class schedule. Academics come first for Lake. She will major in architecture.
Her most memorable athletic moments at RHS were “making new friends in sports and breaking girls tennis history at the team and individual levels.”
The most important lesson she learned as an athlete was “Never give up on what you worked hard to achieve!”
Lake would advise incoming ninth graders to “Be confident that you deserve to be the best as long as you put in the work, time and effort.”
Her favorite subject at RHS was Spanish. Sue Weaver was her favorite teacher, but she says Ola Knutsson was the most unforgettable teacher and Nahid Nikzad is the teacher she admired the most.
“Dayna is a very dedicated and creative student. She is a go-getter. She knew early on that architecture was her passion. She had a goal and she will continue pursuing that goal at Cal Poly SLO,” said Nikzad, who teaches architectural design at RHS.