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Photo by LINDA RICE
Northern High School's marching band participates in Thirkell's mural unveiling ceremony. |
Danielle Walker was out to prove others wrong.
The recent Northern High School graduate wanted to dispel the image of her fellow classmen as being lazy and uninvolved.
“There’s
not many people in this school that’s not involved in extra-curricular
activities,” explains Walker.
She
should know.
This
past school year, she led the trumpet section in each of Northern High
School’s bands: the jazz band, the concert band and the marching band.
And she was senior class president.
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Photo by LINDA RICE
Northern High School's marching band participates in Thirkell's mural unveiling ceremony. |
It
wasn’t a “piece of cake,” she says, because she had to divide her time
among the responsibilities of her band positions and her schoolwork.
As band leader,
Walker spent a lot of time with her particular section, working on everything
from the fundamentals upward. The
practice kept band members well-disciplined and enabled them to fine tune their
playing.
Walker used to play
the bass drum but switched to the trumpet a while back.
The decision isn’t one she regrets, especially when she recalls a few
of the band’s long marches.
“We went to
Canada and marched in a Christmas parade, which was like 6 1/2 miles,”
she says, laughing. “That's a
long time. Every corner we turned,
we thought it was over – but that was not the case.”
Walker's musical
talents and leadership skills will take her to University of Arkansas at Pine
Bluff in the fall. The historically black university is widely respected for its
band and music program.
But when she arrives at the University of Arkansas, music will be her
secondary focus. She intends to major in mathematics.
Walker has been studying advanced mathematics since middle school in the
Wayne State Math Corps. In high
school, she studied logic and advanced calculus, and she helped teach math to
middle school students through the Math Corps.
She also shared her math skills by working as one of the many tutors
inside the band program. In
addition to elevating the band’s collective GPA, Danielle says that tutoring
helped bring the band together as a group.
Lately, Walker has been focusing on argumentative proofs and is ready to
leave her mark in that area of study.
“I take to it well,” she says. “I think some day you'll see my name: Danielle's Postulate.”