Editor’s note: The Auburn Reporter salutes some of the best graduating seniors from each of the Auburn School District’s four high schools.

Whenever the tough-as-nails courses were offered, Rachel Raybuck signed up.

“I’ve always taken advanced classes. That’s the only thing I do,” Raybuck, 18, said with a big laugh, “it’s what I’m good at.”

The brainy, hard-working, Auburn High School graduate-to-be is Western Washington University bound, first step on the road to becoming a dietician.

Raybuck’s grade point average, 3.993, missed perfection by the slimmest of whiskers. Must have taken something preposterously hard, right, something like Theoretical Foundations of Abstract Nothingness to knock this bright kid off the 4.0 perch?

Nope.

“Freshman PE,” Raybuck said. “I didn’t turn in a paper.”

Aside from shouldering the usual tough class load in her senior year, Raybuck is a member of the National Honor Society and a member of Troy Crew. She ran cross country for the first time this year. After school she stocks shelves at Safeway.

Raybuck enjoyed her years at Auburn but is ready to move on.

“They were good years. I’ve always been in the advanced classes, so I’ve never seen any negatives sides of Auburn High School,” Raybuck said.

Except, perhaps, when the school’s antiquarian boilers wheezed and belched up a plume of black smoke, leaving students to shiver in the cold. With the new high school under construction, Raybuck is a member of the last class to spend all four years at the 63-year-old school, and one of the last to have to deal with those infamous boilers.

Any advice for the youngsters coming up, including little brother, Blaine, a junior next year?

“I would say don’t worry so much about finding out what you want to do. I think the hardest thing is teachers telling you that you need to figure out what you are trying to do. I heard that all through high school. I had no idea what direction to take. I’ve kind of got one now, but it could change. I didn’t know, and it’s OK,” Raybuck said.

Her parents are Mitch and Leanne Raybuck.

Bridger Deschamps

Bridger Deschamps digs French, loves history, is a whiz kid at anything to do with numbers, monitors the stock market,

He has played soccer since he was four and coaches 4- and 5-year-old kids in the sport.

This fall, Deschamps, as a freshly-minted Auburn graduate with the green and gold patina still on him, begins his studies at Whitworth University in Spokane. There he intends to major in business and possibly minor in computer science.

His goal: become an accountant and finally own his own business.

He graduates from AHS on the brawn of a 3.90 GPA.

“I like math and finances and the economy,” Deschamps said. “I like to follow the stocks I have. My dad invested money for me, so I gained interest in the stock market … I also really like French because I like learning about different cultures. Both of my parents are in the travel industry, and they exposed me to other countries on trips. I want to continue studying French in college.”

His parents, Cort and Hope, named him Bridger, Deschamps said, because, like many native Montanans, they admire famed westerner Jim Bridger, among the foremost trappers, scouts and guides of the Old West.

For three years, the busy Bridger has found time to captain his Cancer Relay for Life team. He got involved in the American Cancer Society fundraiser after his mother developed and survived breast cancer.

In his senior year, Bridger was captain of the soccer team. He has also run cross country and track since middle school.

He is happily and heavily involved with the youth group at Calvary Community Church in Sumner.

His advice to future Auburn High students like his little sister, Madison?

“Be organized. It pays off, if you can pull it off. You’ll find that keeping your past information is beneficial. It pays off, for instance, with senior projects, with job applications and school applications,” Deschamps said.