Top Of The Class 1997 -- Outstanding Grads, Extraordinary Teachers -- Cleveland Student Has A Gift For Leadership

SEATTLE - Phuong "Fanny" Nguyen has the uncanny ability to persuade her peers to sacrifice their nights and weekends - all for a book, Cleveland High's annual, the "Aquila."

Her maturity, patience, willingness to take on challenges and determination to see them through makes the Cleveland High School senior one of this year's outstanding graduates.

Add leadership to those qualities and you've got a student who can rally the small, hardworking staff to work the long hours needed to put together the annual, says Mary White, one of Nguyen's teachers.

"I guess annual (class) is my greatest accomplishment," says Nguyen, 17. But she's proud of her grade in honors calculus, too, though she ended up with a B.

Physics and calculus teacher Terry Cornelius praises Nguyen for always pursuing the hardest classes and marvels at her success with the yearbook, "which regularly leads students to academic ruin."

"She will go beyond what is expected. She'll solve her own problems and help others at the same time," says Carol Gehrman, a business teacher. Next month, Nguyen will graduate with a business-proficiency certificate as well as a high-school diploma.

"She kind of carried everybody" through production and sales of the annual, says Jeff Oblero, one of Nguyen's annual staff members.

The first in her family to attend a four-year college, she'll take English and chemistry beginning this summer at the University of Washington.

She plans to be a physician, perhaps specializing in pathology.

Nguyen has two brothers and two sisters, all older. She's chosen the UW for college so that she can stay close to her parents. Education comes first for her parents, Newton and Susan Nguyen, who emigrated from Vietnam 15 years ago, says Nguyen.

At Cleveland, Nguyen's also been active in DECA - Distributive Education Clubs of America - where she helped run the school store and vending machines. And she's part of a traditional dance group in the school's Vietnamese Club.

What she's got, says Cornelius, is "a remarkable level of maturity for a high-school student."