2008 Gateway Young Achiever

Parkway student shows leadership, service skills

Two characteristics that helped Andre Booker of Chesterfield win a 2008 Gateway Young Achiever award last spring were his leadership and community service skills.

The 14-year-old is now a 9th grader at Parkway Central High School. And he's continuing to develop these good characteristics, along with his excellent grades and participation in sports.

Andre Booker

Andre was named a Gateway Young Achiever last May, while he was an 8th grader at Parkway Central Middle School.

(Young Saint Louis.com ran a story about the 2008 Gateway Young Achievers last May. Since then, YSL.com has done individual profiles of the elementary and middle school winners. The profile series will end with the January, 2009, edition.)

Ms. Laurel Soltesz-Jones was Andre's French teacher at Parkway Central Middle. She wrote a nominating letter to the YA committee. Ms. Jones said fellow students easily recognize Andre's leadership qualities "since they elected him to the Student Council for the last two years."

Andre with his Certificate of Recognition at the Middle School Awards Day.

The year before coming to Parkway Central Middle, Andre had been elected president of his 5th grade class at River Bend Elementary. He also was elected mayor of Enterprise Village during a Junior Achievement program.

Andre said he likes to talk before groups, no matter the size of the audience.

He was picked as one of the youth speakers during a national Global Business Hall of Fame meeting in St. Louis. The program by Junior Achievement brought together 5,000 delegates from across the country.

In his presentation, Andre held a dialogue with sportscaster Joe Buck, talking about the St. Louis Cardinals. He also sang, "Take Me Out to the Ole Ballgame."

Asked whether he was nervous to speak before such a big audience, Andre said, "No. I really enjoy public speaking."

Andre said he also gets personal enjoyment when working as a volunteer on a community or school charity project.

Earlier this year, he served as a buddy to one of the athletes at the Junior Special Olympics competition. He said the chance to work one-on-one with one of the kids was "an awesome experience."

Some of his personal service extends to his own neighborhood. He has been shoveling snow for a couple of his elderly neighbors. This service is done without charge.

But, that idea did lead to Andre and his older brother, Alex, 16, to set up a lawn care service. They take care of four neighbors' yards, mowing and trimming in the summer and shoveling in the winter. They get paid for this work.

Andre has been an usher at his church, Antioch Baptist, for three years. He also helped with the church's big clothing and toy drive during the holiday season.

A lot of his community service projects come at school, where the Student Council provides leadership.

As the class president at River Bend Elementary, he helped lead a cleanup and planting of a large garden on the school grounds. He said that had a reward at the end since the kids got to make a salad using the home-grown tomatoes, peppers and onions they grew.

"It was a really big garden," he said.

At Parkway Central Middle during his 8th grade year, Andre helped develop the Spirit Week program as well as fund-raisers for the Make a Wish Foundation and the American Cancer Society.

The Cancer Society's Relay for Life Walk-a-thon is a unique 12-hour project, during which kids walk around the school track overnight from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.

The Chesterfield policeman who provides protection at Parkway Central Middle also nominated Andre to be a "junior instructor" for the city's Safety Town program. That's a two-week series of classes for all city pre-schoolers to give the young kids safety lessons.

The "junior instructors" help the younger kids understand all sorts of safety lessons. This includes bike, water, traffic and other safety issues they'll have when starting to school.

Andre (far right) helping at the NAMI Walk-a-thon

Andre also got recruited by his dad, Alex, to work at the NAMI Walk-a-thon. (NAMI stands for the National Alliance for Mental Illness.) Mr. Booker works for Pfizer Corp. and was one of the sponsors for the charity walk to raise money to fight mental illness.

With all his outside activities, Andre also keeps up with his academic work.

He's been in the Parkway Gifted Program since the 2nd grade. He was in Challenge Math in both 7th and 8th grade and in Challenge Science in 8th grade. He's also been on the honor roll every semester. He also received a Spirit of Excellence award, which is given to African-American students who earn a 3.5 or higher grade point.

Andre wearing his middle school football jersey

Andre has been active in both sports and the concert band.

He was one the Junior Colt track and football teams. In track, he ran sprints and on relay teams.

In football, his 7th and 8th grade teams were both undefeated. Andre was both a defensive back and a wide receiver. He also participated in "fleet ball," a version of football where players can pass the ball both forward and backward.

Andre said he plans to go to college, but hasn't decided as yet on a course of study or what he'd like to do in a career.