Laraiah Schichtel.
Three years ago, Laraiah Schichtel sat with the band in Lake City’s gym and listened to Rhett Thompson deliver the valedictory address. When the ceremony ended the freshman went home … and wrote her own valedictory speech.
“I told myself I wanted to be that person up there,” she recalled, “No. 1 in my class.”
Tonight, Schichtel will deliver her valedictory address — and it will be decidedly different from the one she wrote three years ago.
This speech will tell the tale of the school’s best student and three-sport athlete who learned to deal with dyslexia, something likely none of the other 700 or so valedictorians in the state had to overcome.
“When I was younger, I would struggle really badly with reading,” Schichtel said. “But I thought it was that hard for everybody. So I would just work really hard at it. I’d spend lots and lots of time on my homework, but I thought everybody was like that.”
At first she thought the long hours were was just part of the process of being a 4.0 student.
“People would do homework at night, and they’d say it was quick and easy and take them 10 minutes,” she said. “I was, oh, my gosh, it took me at least a half hour to get through the first couple of problems. It was a big-time thing.”
As she advanced through high school, she noticed how much longer she was devoting to school work than her classmates. So she decided to do a little detective work and began researching learning disabilities.
“I started looking things up online, which is never a good idea, but I did it anyways, and I found dyslexia,” she said. “I had all of these symptoms and I told my mom about it and she laughed at me. She said: ‘You can’t be dyslexic. You’re No. 1 in your class.’ ”
Of course her mother scoffed at her. A 4.0 grade-point average and a reading disorder appear to be at opposite ends of the academic spectrum.
But after a good bit of badgering, Schichtel convinced her mother to have her tested last year in nearby Cadillac.
Schichtel said she was given an IQ test and an academic test. She was told her IQ was in the above-average range — and then the bombshell hit.
“The doctor’s words to me were: ‘You’re extremely dyslexic. I honestly don’t know how you didn’t find out by now,’ ” Schichtel said. “Now they call it a reading processing disorder.
“My reading comprehension and my spelling and all of that stuff was extremely low. They measure it in percentile range. Out of all of the kids in the country that were my age, I was in the less than .02-range for reading and reading comprehension.”
Doing the math, that means 99.98% of high school students Schichtel’s age read better and retain more than she does.
Then add in the fact Schichtel is also a standout in volleyball, which she will play at Davenport University, and in basketball and track — she will run the 300 meter hurdles at next week’s Division 3 state championship meet — and her academic achievements are even more impressive.
“Nights of having a basketball game and getting home at 11 o’clock and then doing homework for two more hours and getting to bed at 1 or 2-ish,” she said, “they were tough.”
By the way, it isn’t difficult to figure out Schichtel’s favorite school subject.
“Math!” she said. “Because there’s no letters and verbs. But this year in AP calculus, it was basically all words and no numbers.”
Yet she found a way to finish at the top of her class and prepare a valedictory address, one significantly different from her freshman version.
“I found that one about a year ago,” she said, laughing. “It was pathetic. What was I thinking?”
This speech will likely contain a message for her fellow seniors as well as any freshmen who might be sitting in the audience wanting to be valedictorian someday.
“Everybody has an obstacle in their life,” Schichtel said. “Everybody has a different one. I learned that really, no matter what your obstacle is, you can really accomplish anything as long as you set your mind to it.”
Contact Mick McCabe: 313-223-4744 or mmccabe@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mickmccabe1.