Dishman Hills High School: While caring for others, Audrey Priestly is determined to achieve her goals

Dishman Hills High School senior Audrey McClinton Priestly is

not one to seek the spotlight.

McClinton Priestly is more interested in being there for others and taking some of the load off their shoulders. If someone is behind on their work, for example, she will help them as much as she can so they stay on top of assignments.

“I try to show up with a smile and not try to be all gloomy and down, because when you’re gloomy and down, it makes other people around you gloomy and down,” she said.

Teacher Eric Groshoff, who had McClinton Priestly in advisory and Makerspaces classes, noticed that quality in McClinton Priestly soon after she arrived at the school for her junior year. McClinton Priestly, he said, is more concerned about others than she is about herself, even down to the projects she chooses to work on, which are almost always gifts for others.

She shows a lot of grit in her personal and academic life, and can often be found in the middle of school drama – as a mediator, not an agitator.

“Her character is top notch,” Groshoff said. “Of the 30 years I’ve been teaching, she is definitely in the top 1% of kids that are caring and compassionate and can do it even through such tough times that she’s had in her life.”

McClinton Priestly attended another high school in Spokane for her freshman year before moving to Ocean Shores with her family. After her mother Cara died, she moved back to Spokane, where she now lives with her grandmother.

McClinton Priestly said her mother raised her to think more of others than about herself. She also credits her mother for being the reason she is graduating high school, saying it was one of the last things she asked McClinton Priestly to do before she died two years ago, a month before McClinton Priestly’s 16th birthday.

“She’s very much the light of my life story,” McClinton Priestly said. “I have a necklace with her ashes in it that I wear every single day. She very much was my rock in my life.”

After graduation, McClinton Priestly plans to attend Spokane Community College to study cosmetology. She hopes to become a hairstylist, as she’s been doing her own hair since fifth grade, and she and her mother used to do each other’s hair. She has also helped style her siblings’ hair, saying hair is fun to play with.

While at SCC, she also wants to take business classes with the goal of one day opening up a shop with her friends. One is interested in doing nails, another is interested in tattooing. Combined with McClinton Priestly’s hair salon, she thinks they can bring in a lot of customers.

McClinton Priestly said she tries not to make big plans for the future lest she be disappointed when they don’t come to fruition, but when it’s something she’s really interested in, she can’t help it.

“I go with the flow of life, and when things pop up, I’m like, ‘I’m going to try this,’ ” she said. “When things come up and it’s something I really want to do, I’m very driven to do it.”