Smith 1

Blake Smith
WRTC 103
Prof. Fielding
15 September 2015
Community Membership in a Local, Rural High School
Through the many years of my high school career, I had multiple requirements that I had
to meet including writing research papers and having a project that defined my senior year. As
my high school career was shortening into a lengthy college career at James Madison University,
I had defining moments that changed my membership as a citizen of the United States. My high
school roughly had 750 students with classes taught by local community members and teachers
the high school had provided throughout my four years of high school. The defining piece of my
group membership comes from living in a small, rural county defined for its high school football
and local baseball stars that came out of Goochland County. As a student of this tradition, I
characterize Goochland County as a place in which gains are placed through each of the
community members that help better the founding of Goochland County throughout its history.
Through the founding principles and origins of my group membership, the strengths of my high
school defined my educational standards through my teachers based curriculums and values
such as spiritual gains that will be required in todays society.
I originated in the tidewater region of Virginia and moved, when I was young, to the
rural county of Goochland to being a successful graduate of Goochland High School. The
development of myself was a relative thorough process through the pride of the teachers that

Smith 2

taught at the local high school to the developmental staff that was engaged throughout each day
of my educational career at Goochland High School and beyond. My family was based and
originated through the upbringings of Virginia and met the requirements from the levels of a
trade college in immediate family. I engaged in sports and had established religious values
through my familys membership of the Methodist religion and served in a couple of mission
trips to Valdosta, Georgia, and New York. Through these community based trips, my exchanges
and experiences changed with my spiritual goals in those trips with the overlying goal being to
serve a purpose with a greater goal than yourself. Through this mission trips, I learned the
experiences of many others from other states based out of Minnesota, Alaska, and many others.
My spiritual gains through this recent trips helped me become more educated through past
experiences and have an economical and spiritual experience in which few people can believe
and organize through their religious views.
Based on the athletic spotlight that surrounded my high school, it was justified as a
relatively competitive athletic high school with few students going to the ranks of division one
football and baseball through the talents of those students on and off those fields. With the
founding principles of Goochland County being supported by Sir William Gooch in 1727, who
founded the land (Goochland Historical Society), that I met the requirements for my graduation
of high school. Through the basis of having an athletic spotlight on the county, the community
gathering and specific goals were based on the urbanizing factors that are placed on the ranks of
Goochland County.
Through the findings of Sir William Gooch in 1727, Goochland County has been a
bustling county with a set of urbanizing features that has been planned throughout todays date as

Smith 3

a defined county. As a county and through the local high school, citizens of Goochland County
have been continuously seen as people who seen the county as a continued project with multiple
projects yet to come. As a perspective on the membership on being a high school graduate, the
people who provided the internships and opportunities for the 200 students who graduated this
year have resided in the surrounding counties that are located near Goochland County. My
involvement in being a community member was based upon the factors of serving as a student of
Goochland High School and having an impact on the local community through the definitions of
the founding of Goochland County and elsewhere. The characteristics of my membership in the
graduating class could be defined as a person who supported this process with organizations that
propelled and helped the relief in the impact of graduating 200 students. Through the statement
of a continued project, the students at Goochland High School are still provided with the
fulfillment of opportunities and the opportunities to succeed inside the classroom and outside the
classroom.
To the discussion of a changed leadership through my high school career, the
administration and school board of Goochland County changed due to the higher standards that
are significant to the growing number of citizens that the urbanizing county allows through
prevalent to my high school. The discussion of the urbanizing county is based on the subject of
the defining curriculum that the teachers gave and characterized throughout the daily work at
Goochland High School. Through my experiences as a high school student, the teachers believe
in a single standard curriculum that gives and supports an ultimate in which every student can
take with them through their life as a growing citizen of the United States.

Smith 4

Through my decisive experience at Goochland High School, the earthquake that hit in my
freshman year of my high school career resonates through me as a citizen through the
justifications of the support and donations that flooded into the neighboring county of Goochland
County. On my second day as a high school student, the earthquake that hit in Mineral, Virginia
was a life changing experience in the way that people responded to the neighboring county and
how people would be affected through the impact of the earthquake. As the damage of the
earthquake had subsided, many donations throughout the nation flooded in, due to the fact, of
having a local high school impacted by this natural disaster. Through the countless benefit games
and donations I saw as a student resonates for me through the community who rebuilds after
destruction was prevalent for less than 30 seconds in a community of roughly 500
people(Vigon). Through this destructive experience and story, I experienced the simple
approaches of how one major event can impact a local community in which the growth is
dedicated throughout my high school career.
Through my dedicated experiences as a high school student, I have taken multiple
approaches that have been discussed in my academic courses that can be used on a daily basis
through the daily events. As my high school career was wrapping up, my influences I developed
as a senior in high school will forever encompass the person I am and the citizen who I intend to
be in the near future. As my educational career extends for another 4 to 6 years longer, I am
progressively seeing the definitions of my group membership begin to change to a college
student who encompasses his residency of Goochland County into a student population of 24,000
students at James Madison University.

Smith 5

Transitioning from a high

school student to a college
student is a significant
process. From classes to
studying for those exams,
college makes my group
membership grow into a
better United States citizen.September 20,2015

Works Cited
"Goochland Historical Society." Goochland. Goochland Historical Society, 2015. Web.
20 Sept. 2015. <http://www.goochlandhistory.org/>.
Vigon, Becky. "Town of Mineral." Town of Mineral. Mineral County, June-July 2015.
Web. 17 Sept. 2015. <http://townofmineral.com/>.

Smith 6