Young, Gifted & Black Series
By Taki S. Raton
Clara Smith
She was one of 109 recipients of this year’s annual Phi Beta Kappa awards sponsored by the Cleveland Association of Phi Beta Kappa and hosted at the Landerhaven in Mayfield Heights, Ohio.
The recipients are selected by faculty from area high schools, and the scholastic awards are based on academic achievement with grade point averages in the top 10 percent of the class.
She is Young, she is Gifted, and she is Black, Clara Smith of Jane Addams Business Career Center in Cleveland was recognized on May 6 with what is considered by many to be one of the most prestigious honors a high school student can receive. Each student’s name will be engraved on the Phi Beta Kappa plaque and permanently displayed at each school.
Clara was the class valedictorian of her 2012 Jane Addams graduating class and will be the first in her family to attend college when she enters Kent State University in Kent, Ohio this fall.
“I was always the kid who wanted more,” said Clara as quoted in Rachel Dessell’s Plain Dealer May 20 article. “If we were learning to add, I wanted to learn long division,” she recalls.
When she was younger, Clara’s father put training wheels on her bike. But she “stubbornly demanded” that he remove them.
“For weeks, she walked around with scabbed arms and legs,” as cited in the Dessell report, “until she mastered riding”
Clara grew up with the usual problems facing urban youth in these challenging times that could have thrust her onto a self-destructive course with the usual negative outcomes. At her Alexander Graham Bell elementary school, Dessell shared that her school mates were mean and often teased her because she wore braces.
The Cleveland born teen notes that her fourth-grade teacher pulled her aside and gave her support and encouragement.
“At one point, the teacher gathered the whole class and asked them to share something they liked about each other. I knew she was doing it for me. That was important to me at the time.”
Like many other African American young teens in this series, Clara’s experiences growing up have made her resilient, compassionate and hardworking.
Living with her mother, Shirley Smith, it was reported that Clara was “greatly affected” by a close relative who on the day he passed in 2010 said how proud he was of her for choosing the right path.
Clara’s high school guidance counselor, Renee Gainor wrote a recommendation letter cited in the Plain Dealer:
“When I think I’m having a bad day and don’t feel like being productive, I think of Clara and all she’s overcome. She strives to be the best she can possibly be and is a positive influence for all of us around her.”
She reportedly had already earned 40 hours of class credit at Cuyahoga Community College which will allow her to surpass freshman status by the time she begins classes at Kent.
These college classes helped Clara in her selection of career goals. She originally planned to enter the food service industry as a dietician, but upon successfully pursuing a variety of courses at Cuyahoga, she decided to major in international relations and law. Her professional outlook now includes extensive travel, becoming multilingual and participation in the global political arena.
Her community involvement list membership in Key Club events and volunteering at an area hospice and food bank. Reportedly, she also along with several friends organized a “Beads for Breast Cancer Fundraiser.”
The Jane Addams Business Careers Center (JABCC) is one of six Career and Technical specialty schools within the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. The JABCC is known throughout the city for its exceptional student-operated restaurant, The Executive Grill where, according to reports, visitors from throughout the city “rave” about their entrees and desserts.
Students apply and must then be selected to attend. The JABCC is the only Cleveland high school which has been recognized by the Department of Education as an Ohio School of Promise for seven consecutive years for meeting the state established goals in reading and math.
In May 2008, Jane Adams was included in the listing of America’s Best High Schools and was awarded the Bronze Medal by U.S. News & World Report. The school is named after Jane Addams, who in 1931 became the first American Woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.