From Student to Staff Member

Hey Braves! This is our very first Alumni interview, who currently work at LHS. For our first one we have interviewed our very own Counselor and Head Cheer & Pom coach, Mrs. Kira Gonzales. If you didn’t know Mrs. Gonzales, she actually went to LHS! She graduated in 2003. She was involved in numerous sports, trying to find what she enjoyed the most.

Her Freshman and Sophomore year she was a manager for the wrestling team. She also participated in volleyball, swim, track, and wrestling. During her sophomore year she started in the dance class and really enjoyed it. By her junior year she joined the cheer team.  She did not come from a dance background but she had tried out for the cheer team as a freshman and had made it, but couldn’t do it because she hadn’t passed her physical, Mrs. Gonzalez was dealing with pretty severe scoliosis. In which she hadn’t known at the time that it had gotten worse. She didn’t return again to try-out until her junior year, and made it doing it her junior and senior year.

She credits LHS for making her more of an academic scholar, prior to coming into high school she felt like she was just a mediocre student. The first semester of her freshman year she got a 4.0 GPA, earning an English certificate. Which is a big deal you can only get it once and it only goes to one person a year. She realized that she was more academically inclined than she had thought.  She really credits her teachers for making her more focused and motivated with her grades. She was involved in FFA, A.S.B. as a class officer, and was involved in different clubs to try and find her interests. She wanted to take as much advantage of the experience as possible, and that’s what she believes is why she enjoyed it so much. Cheer was by far her favorite thing about high school. More specifically the Dance Shows, that cheer puts on every year.

She has been working here at LHS for 4 years as a counselor and for 9 years as the Cheer & Pom coach. She wanted to come back here because of her counselor in high school. Her counselor in high school was her class advisor and she had gotten super close with her. She was an intrical part in helping her with getting into college and what made her want to become a counselor. She is still involved in a lot of the things that she did in high school like cheer and is still involved in A.S.B by now setting LHS 20 year reunion for 2003. In her opinion, being a staff member now is totally different from being a student here. A fun fact about Mrs. Gonzales is that she and Mrs. Lopez have been best friends since high school and are now the Cheer & Pom coaches together.