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Martin racks up achievements; BOE takes time to applaud him
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · May 26, 2016
West Branch High School senior Russell Martin stepped up to the podium May 9 to show the Board of Education a prosthetic hand he made with the school’s 3D printer.
They interrupted to praise him for recent academic honors: The Des Moines Register’s Top 10 Academic All-State 2016 and the Fourteenth Annual Governor’s Scholar for Outstanding Academic Achievement.
Martin closes out his education career at West Branch with a 3.97 grade point average, an ACT score of 35 out of 36, and a class rank of five out of 58. He also was one of those honored at the annual Best of the Class event at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, sponsored by KWWL TV.
“We are so impressed with you as a person,” Superintendent Kevin Hatfield said.
Martin was one of 432 high school seniors from across the state to win the governor’s award, which was presented May 6 during a ceremony at Hy-Vee Hall in Des Moines. The recognition is jointly given by the Gov. Terry Branstad, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, the Iowa High School Athletic Assoc. and title sponsor Iowa Farm Bureau Federation.
The Des Moines Register Top 10 is chosen from applications, and Martin said 321 applied, from which the Register produced a Top 40 Academic All-State and a Top 10 which mixed academics and athletics, the latter of which he received.
“I’m really excited about it,” he told the school board, which applauded.
WBHS Principal Shannon Bucknell said Martin “downplays” the significance of the Des Moines Register honor.
“It really is a big deal,” he said. “It is gargantuan. It is probably the top award in the academic realm.”
According to the IHSAA, the Governor’s Scholars recognitions are drawn from applications by each high school for seniors with “the highest academic ranking” and noted that almost all participate in extra-curricular activities, and more than 80 percent participate in sports.
Martin told the board he plans to attend the University of Iowa, but also applied at Harvard, Columbia and Washington universities. Martin said he has been “whitelisted” for those three schools, which is similar to a waiting list. If anyone accepted by those three universities opts to go somewhere else, he is one of about a thousand who still has a chance to take that spot.
“Russell obviously has a backup plan,” Bucknell observed. “He pushes himself to apply. We open up tons of doors, but Russell will be one who knocked it down”
Martin calls himself “lucky,” and hopes the high school staff will make the effort to push other students “to their limits.”
Hatfield called Martin a “model student,” and also thanked Martin’s mother, Selina, for supporting her son, calling Selina a “model parent.”
The Des Moines Register honors, which were released April 24, included information and interviews with each of the winners, and Martin there states that he aspires to become a biomedical researcher and professor to help mold the next generation of minds and medical advances.
“This means the impact I make during my career will last long after I stop teaching,” he told the Register.
Martin has been involved in several sports, fine arts and academic groups throughout high school, like National Honor Society, track, show choir, jazz band and cross country.
As his mother is from Bangladesh and his father from Wisconsin, Martin is a biracial Muslim, he told the Des Moines Register, saying he learned to accept his differences as the only Muslim family in the city.
He told the Register that he has talked about Islam to his peers, a local church and the school newspaper and that terrorist attacks from groups like ISIS “are actually the opposite of the teachings of Islam.”
At the high school’s awards night on Monday, Martin was recognized for academic achievement in science, English, music, choir, math and language arts; and volunteering more than 100 hours in the past four years. He also received the Friends Church Peace Scholarship, a West Branch Booster Club Scholar Athletic Award, a Gil Barker Memorial Scholarship, a President’s Education Award, and a Quad City Times Salute to Academics and Achievements academic award.
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