HIGH POINT, N.C. (WFMY) – Sometimes it’s inevitable and we miss work or school because of a cold, a family emergency, or just… life!
But one Southwest Guilford High School senior made it her mission at a very young age to never miss a day of school.
June Blankenship will graduate on June 16 with perfect attendance from the first grade all the way to the 12th.
How exactly was that possible, you may ask?
“I never really got sick,” June said. “And we would always make sure to plan doctors’ appointments and dentists’ appointments on a Saturday or a day we didn’t have school.”
But it’s a little more than just an academic goal for June: she’s doing it in honor of her father Benjie Blankenship.
“Two weeks before sixth grade started he unexpectedly passed away from a heart attack and then that was hard on me and my family, she said.
June lost her dad in the summer of 2011, right before she began middle school, and didn’t let the heartbreaking circumstance hold her back.
“It was hard for me and my family but I knew he would want me to continue to go to school,” June explained. “I wanted to go and I wanted to do that for him.”
As an older sister, it also meant stepping up to the plate and helping her mom and little sister.
“It was really hard but I knew that for my mom and for my sister I had to be strong.”
Her mother, Anne Blankenship, describes her daughter as “responsible, caring and wise beyond her years.”
“She’s had to grow up early in her life,” Blankenship said about the impact of her husband’s death in June’s life. “It kinda forced her to get older and mature at an earlier age and help tke care of her younger sister and help take care of me!”
June mentioned that her dad “was an emotionally strong guy” and that trait taught her to be the same way.
June will graduate with a 4.5 GPA and plans to enroll at UNCC and major in physical therapy.
“I’m so awesomely proud of her,” her mother shared. “And her dad would be too!!”
When asked what she would say to her dad, June said, “That I have three days left and I’ve done it! And that I really love him and that I miss him.”
