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After many speeches, awards, tears and hugs, Broadneck High School (BHS) seniors turned their tassels from right to left, officially marking their graduation in early June. Two of those students are this year’s valedictorian and salutatorian, Kiera Lord and Eva Barrat.
Lord, Broadneck’s valedictorian, is an academic standout and leader.
She started and led Broadneck’s biology club in her junior and senior years. The club focused on fostering scientific curiosity in students through hands-on experiments, such as testing salinity and pH levels in local water ecosystems. Lord also added an Advanced Placement (AP) Biology tutoring program and science-based game nights to the club for variety and fun. “The main thing that I wanted for the club was to just see everyone happy with the work they were doing,” she said.
While Lord poured lots of time and love into the biology club, her favorite memories from her high school years are from her Annapolis marksmanship team. For four years, Lord traveled across America with some of her closest friends for rifle shooting competitions.
Though Lord enjoyed many high school highlights, she also faced a grave loss during her junior year when her mother, Jennifer Lord, died of an aggressive form of brain cancer in the middle of college application season. This forced Lord to navigate grieving while managing the stress of college applications. “It was difficult to compartmentalize something that had happened that's very personal, but also so tragic,” she said, “but I knew that taking my foot off the gas and kind of backpedaling at such an important time would really damage the future.”
Lord found the strength to push through college application season by holding on to what her mother wanted for her. “I knew that my mom would want me to keep working hard and stay focused through everything,” she said.
She also credits friends and family for keeping her driven during this time. Lord remembers her brother Alec saying, “We’re going to make her proud. No funny business.” She agreed with him and her other brother to stay focused and support each other through the grief.
She plans to study economics and criminology at the University of Pennsylvania and hopes to work in financial counterterrorism one day. Lord discovered a love for national security after watching family members work in that field within the military, and after attending the FBI Teen Academy last summer. The experience cemented her desire to do government and national security work.
“I knew that I wanted to do something that would contribute and make a difference,” she said, “And for me, that is looking like civilian intelligence.”
Lord also credits her interest in national security to her freshman year AP U.S. History teacher Andrew Villwock. She noted that he gave her the analytical lens that helped inspire what she wanted to do as a career.
Lord’s biggest piece of advice for younger Broadneck students aiming to make the most of their high school years is to “follow your dreams and remember why you are chasing them.”
“It’s very easy to get caught up in what’s happening in the moment,” she warned, “but if you look ahead and look to your goals … that motivation is going to carry you through all the hard times in your way.”
Broadneck’s salutatorian, Barrat, has both strong academic achievements and a deep love for community service. She plans to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall and major in global studies with the goal of becoming a diplomat or lawyer for refugees.
During her four years at BHS, Barrat loved to race in cross country and indoor and outdoor track. Cross country was her favorite, though. “Some of my favorite memories from high school were getting up really early for meets where we would have to be at school at 5:00am, and we would all get there and we were all tired, but we would all watch the sunrise together,” she said.
In addition to athletics, Barrat took 10 AP courses over three years while leading two clubs. She managed her schedule by studying for an hour each morning and for two more after school and clubs ended. Her advice to younger students who also want to do well in school and live community-centered lives is to “focus on doing your best and know that it will work out.”
Barrat joined Broadneck’s Interact Club as a freshman and worked as the club’s secretary her sophomore year before becoming the club’s president her junior and senior years. As club president, Barrat led projects including making goodie bags for firefighters, hosting food drives, and helping fund student-led environmental projects. She also organized multiple neighborhood 5K races and raised over $3,000 for Doctors Without Borders, a humanitarian-focused medical organization that provides medical care to people in crisis situations across the world. Barrat considered the Interact Club one of the most rewarding clubs she had done. “I think it was nice to know that the people in the club and I had actually managed to make a difference and potentially help someone,” she said.
Barrat brought her love for other nations and people groups to the Global Awareness Club, which started her junior year. In this club, students present on international cultures. Barrat especially enjoyed presenting on Chinese culture and bringing her club to an authentic Chinese restaurant at the end of the school year.
Outside of clubs, Barrat has served her community through her church, First Presbyterian Church of Annapolis. Each holiday season, Barrat enjoys distributing meals for the homeless through her church. This summer, she is excited to travel to the Czech Republic with her church to teach English to Czech children.
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