A.J. Staton’s passions are math, music, and community.
A “big old poster” of a shuttle that he received when he was 4 or 5 years old catapulted A.J. Staton into the space phase that a lot of little kids go through.
But unlike other kids, A.J. never came out of that phase. An entire school career later, he’s preparing to graduate from Colonial Forge High School this spring and plans to study aerospace engineering in college, hopefully Virginia Tech.
“We have satellites that are used for weather mapping,” he said. “I think it would be really cool if we could use some sort of algorithm to determine the optimal time and location for planting,” to boost food production in areas of the globe where food is scarce or hard to grow.
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Stafford County Public Schools announced earlier this month that A.J. is a semifinalist in the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program. He’s one of 16,000 high school seniors from across the country to be selected as a semifinalist for the 70th annual program.
He now has a chance to continue in the competition for a National Merit Scholarship. These are awarded in the spring to 6,870 finalists and are collectively worth nearly $26 million.
A.J. has been in Stafford County Public Schools since 5th grade. He named Elaina Rogers, his math teacher at Colonial Forge for the past three years, as one of his favorite teachers, along with Kelly Hale and Karen Roark-Kramer, both English teachers at Colonial Forge.
“I think the perfect teacher is someone who is going to balance being a kind and passionate person [with an ability] to teach and convey information incredibly well,” A.J. said. “All those teachers I just mentioned just excel at that.”
A.J. said his family and community help him stay motivated to be successful.
“A lot of it, I think, comes from the people I surround myself with,” he said. “It’s not just, I have to do this for me, but I should do this for the people around me,” such as his younger sister, for whom he wants to set a good example.
“It’s thinking of other people and the impacts my hard work could have,” he continued.
Besides math, A.J.’s other passion is music. He plays in Colonial Forge’s guitar ensemble and is also in two bands—a punk band called Nauseous, and a metal band called Messorum.
He said music is how he expresses himself and relieves stress.
“The beauty of music is that I think anybody, no matter how talented, can fully express themselves with music,” he said.
A.J.’s advice to younger students is to remember that success is a team effort.
“I didn’t get here alone,” he said. “I was a product of my parents, my siblings, my friends, my teachers. I wouldn’t have gotten here without any of them. I think it’s important for kids to know that independence is important, but also know how vital relationships can be.”
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