‘Terrific student’ likes helping when she can

No matter how cool it is to be rude, manners will get you noticed. That’s one thing Alex Clark has learned in her 14 years of life. The Lakes Middle School eighth-grader was honored a few months ago with a Citizen of the Month award. A Student of the Month award was bestowed upon her last year in health class. For this May, she and another student were selected as Shop Students of the Month.

If you ask why, she isn’t sure, but Alex believes it all boils down to being polite. She stayed awake through her early-morning health class while other kids dozed off. While working as an office aide last semester, she always answered requests with, “Sure, I can do that for you.”

Shop teacher David Eubanks had several reasons for selecting Alex as a Shop Student of the Month.

“She’s a terrific student,” he said. “She’s always on task. She’s very helpful to me personally, as well as to other students.”

Girls make up about one-third of the shop class and Eubanks notes that girls typically do a better job. Besides creativity, patience is needed to carve out the detail work and girls have more at this age, he said. Using a band saw, Alex was able to leave the delicate, fringed whiskers intact on a wooden moose key holder while other kids just lopped them off. She carved a heart-shaped jewelry box for her mother, Ellen, and a bear-shaped toilet paper rack for her grandfather.

“They look professionally made when Alex is done with them,” Eubanks said.

Despite boys in the class who distracted her by flinging rubber bands, Alex stayed focused on her shop projects. She waited two years to get into the popular elective, which is one of the few remaining shop classes in North Idaho middle schools, according to Eubanks.

“I like doing things boys don’t think girls should do,” Alex said. “I like proving my point, that I can do these things, but I can also be a lady about it.”

Alex credits her parents for guiding her in manners.

“My dad’s a teacher,” she said. “You’re supposed to respect them.”

Her father, Hal, was also the one to introduce Alex to tools. She was the toddler-sized apprentice who would hand dad the hammer as he worked on their Coeur d’Alene home. She and her sister, Melissa, 17, have lived in the same house since birth. They were born at home with a midwife attending.

As for what motivates Alex to keep up her grades, the suspect is again her father, who teaches Post Falls sixth-graders.

“When our kids were little, their dad was in school and studying all the time,” Ellen Clark said. “They thought that’s what people did and have always done the same.”

Alex is an avid reader and maintained a 4.0 grade-point average through seventh and eighth grade. She’s played piano for years and took second place in the spelling bee this year. Next year she’ll attend Lake City High School where she worries about riding a bus for the first time and volleyball tryouts. She was on the “A” team in her middle school and never had to worry about getting cut.

Her transition should be smooth if she sticks with the strategy that has worked so well through middle school.

“I spent my time helping others and not just worrying about myself,” she said.