HARLINGEN — She’s got another shot at it, and this time she’s reaching farther, higher … just better all around.
“I know what to work on and I’m going to try harder, a lot harder,” said Zena Arocena, 17, who’s competing in the Boys and Girls Clubs Youth of the Year event at the state level.
Zena, a senior at Early College High School, won Youth of the Year last spring and represented Texas at the regional event last fall. This year she hopes to win regional.
“Last year I didn’t really know most of the questions they were throwing at me,” she said. “I wasn’t really prepared for the questions they asked, but I answered them honestly and I think I did a pretty well job.”
But, “pretty well is not good enough,” as she so aptly put it. So this year she has a list of questions which she practices with Hilda Gathright and Alma Dones, directors at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Harlingen.
“I feel like this time I should be more specific about how much the Boys and Girls Club has done for me,” she said. “I’m going to show more emotion, use words that display the emotion that I have because of the Boys and Girls Club and the things that they have done for me.”
And what has the Boys and Girls Clubs done for her?
Support and direction, and encouragement in setting goals. Gathright, director at the LeMoyne Gardens Unit, urged her to enroll at ECHS, where she currently maintains a GPA of 4.09.
“Hilda was like, ‘You need to go there, you need to go there, it’ll help you, you need to do this,’” Zena recalled. “So I did. And now I don’t regret it one bit because I’m getting two years of college done and I’ll be ready for whatever comes next.”
Whatever comes next is college at either University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, UTRGV, or UT-Austin, all of which have already accepted her. She’s still waiting to hear back from Rice University.
“Right now it looks like I want to do pre-law for child abuse lawyer or probably pre-public relations,” she said.
Then, on further reflection —
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I’m still debating if I actually want to go hard for pre-law because I know you really have to be passionate about it. And I really am passionate about domestic abuse with children. I think that’s what I’m leaning towards right now. Both Rice and UT have a good pre-law program.”
In the meantime, she still spends her time finishing up her high school and college work. When she’s not doing that she’s working with kids at the Main Unit of the Boys and Girls Clubs — and preparing her speech and questions.
