LAKEWOOD — Blake Watts, 18, is a senior at Lakewood High School. He balances a 3.2 cumulative grade point average with sports, leadership and volunteering. He hopes to work in criminal justice and is preparing for years of schooling through college level courses in high school.
Question: Can you tell me about some the activities you do at school?
Answer: I’m heavily involved in sports here at Lakewood High School. I do football and track, and my freshman year I did basketball, as well. I have been playing sports all my life and continue to play through my high school career. I’m also involved in a leadership academy to help out Lakewood and make it a better place. We also do Cougar Crew, and that’s where we help freshmen and help bring them up and make them feel like they’re a part of Lakewood High School. We have blood donations, and I always donate blood. I help the football team put on a football program every year for the younger kids, not just in Lakewood but in Arlington and Marysville and Stanwood. We help put on that to teach morals, teach them about Lakewood High School and why it’s such a great place, and teach them overall good football values for our program and teach them a couple plays here and there just to keep them ready and excited for football.
Q: Do you do other volunteer work?
A: I help with powderpuff football. I’m an assistant coach. My dad’s the head coach of it, and I go help out the ladies and that raises money for Lakewood High School just to help put forth some new stuff for our school and our sports teams. I help out with food drives here at Lakewood High School for the Marysville Food Bank. I’ve done a couple. We usually go to Safeway and stand out there for several hours and help donate food for the food bank. I’ve helped out at Hole in the Wall, which is the biggest (cross-country) meet here. I help with setup and teardown and all the stuff the coach wants us to do. Those are my main activities that I’m involved in here. I help out with some smaller stuff like leadership and just helping out around the school.
Q: Do you have any favorite subjects in school?
A: Probably science and math are my favorite. I love science and math.
Q: Are you hoping to turn those into a career someday?
A: It’s kind of funny because I do like science and math, but what I really want to go into usually doesn’t use that much, maybe a little bit of science. I want to do criminal justice and work with the government someday. It’s a lot of schooling, but I really want to do that because I’ve done a lot of research and I’ve always grown up watching it and thought that was a cool career.
Q: Do you have family members who work in criminal justice?
A: No, but I’ve had grandma and grandpas who have been in the Army, Navy and Air Force and they tell me stories about it. I’m not looking to go into the military, but I want to do something that helps out the country and helps out civilians.
Q: Any particular area of criminal justice?
A: Like CIA, DEA, kind of along those lines.
Q: What are your college plans?
A: I’ve got it narrowed down to a couple schools, Washington State and Eastern Washington being the biggest ones on that list. I’ve been to both campuses, I like them both. I think they’re really great schools, really great atmospheres.
Q: Do you have jobs outside of your volunteer work?
A: Yeah. Last summer I did construction work with G2 Contracting. I worked there basically the whole summer just as a part-time job while I had free time from football. I would occasionally put out flyers for landscaping, like mowing people’s yards, just making a little pocket change here and there.
Q: Do you have any hobbies you do at home?
A: Mainly just work out. I like to study a lot. Watch football. I’ve built my own computer, but I don’t know if that’s a hobby. I’m a really tech-savvy guy. I like technology.
Q: Have you been at Lakewood all four years of high school?
A: Yeah. I’m actually a Lakewood lifer. I’ve been here all my life.
Kari Bray: 425-339-3439, kbray@heraldnet.com
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