Courtnay Suzanne Tull is graduating from Atlantic Shores Christian High school.  This is an amazing feat in itself, but if you delve a little further into her life you would find that this young lady’s life is replete with remarkable deeds – all accomplished with passion, excellence, and a burning desire to please God.  In her eighteen short years Courtnay has received scholarly awards and honorable recognition from her peers. She has traveled the world multiple times to help the needy, and has still found time to excel at various sports as well as hone her talents as a musician and worship leader.  All in all, Courtnay has led an exciting and blessed life.

   Most know of Courtnay’s many scholastic achievements, which recently culminated in her being named Salutatorian of the 2007 ASCS graduating class.  Home-schooled by her mother until the ninth grade, Courtnay developed a self-professed love for learning.  Constantly challenging herself in the educational arena, she often took honors classes when available. As a sophomore in high school, she was deemed Outstanding Student of Spanish II, Algebra II, and English honors classes.  As a junior, she was given the UVA Jefferson Book Award.  Most recently, she was awarded top honors for an essay written for Black History Month.  However, the award she treasures most was bestowed upon her during her freshman year: the Noah Webster Scholar Award – a prize given to the most outstanding scholar, not just of academics, but of God’s word.  As Courtnay herself said, “That award has shaped my life; I look at it as one of the greatest honors I have ever attained, and as a recipient of the award I feel an added responsibility to diligently study God’s Word, hiding it my heart.”

   But dig a little deeper and you will find that Courtnay does not just hide God’s Word in her heart, but she uses it to guide her life and interactions with others.  Courtnay’s kind and fun-loving spirit has garnered her many friends, and her peers have shown their appreciation of her Godly personality by voting her into many leadership positions such as team captain for her soccer and volleyball squads, Vice President of the National Honor Society, and Secretary of the Student Body Government.  Recently, her classmates have crowned her with yet another title – one that most high school girls only dream of – Homecoming Queen. 

   It’s evident that Courtnay has won the hearts of her peers with her smarts and her smile, but on the other side of the world she has made a lifelong impact on friends who don’t even speak the same language. In a tiny unknown village in the Kostroma region of Russia, Courtnay’s life was changed forever.  During her first missions trip at the age of twelve to an orphanage in Soligalich, she “met and fell in love with the real, true, living, amazing God.”  As she shared her love, attention, and her faith in Christ with the most forgotten and despised inhabitants of the village, she found that she also received a gift from God – a sense of belonging, not only with the people, but with Him:  “I sensed that I was doing what I was meant to do…I was who I was meant to be.”  After three return trips to Soligalich and another missions trip to Brazil, Courtnay knows for sure that she wants to work with people in such a way that whatever she does helps them for years to come.

   Lucky for us, she doesn’t reserve that desire just for underprivileged children in foreign countries.  A gifted pianist and singer, Courtnay has put her musical talents to good use in the church by leading a youth worship band.  And her close-knit family has always been a huge priority to her, whether she’s cheering on her brothers and sister in sporting events or dance recitals, lending her mom a hand around the house, or helping her dad out at the office.  She also finds time to travel and enjoy a hobby or two, like studying abroad in Italy, skiing in Denver, or riding horses down the Grand Canyon with her family.

   This summer, Courtnay hopes to be a YMCA youth camp counselor as she prepares to face another exciting challenge in her life as a freshman at Oral Roberts University.  Whatever she does, you can be sure that her work will bear her trademark of excellence:  “My parents have always encouraged me that if I start something I must finish it all the way through, but not just finish it, excel at it.  That is my goal in life, to do all that I do excellently as if it were just for one audience, or for one Master, my God.”

~~ Written by M. Black ~~