Audio clip
Mirzeta Muretcehajic
PDF:Honors Banquet Program 2008
Mirzeta Muretcehajic, 18, often thinks of how dramatically different her life could have been had she not ended up at East Ridge High School.
Thirteen years ago Ms. Muretcehajic and her family came to Tennessee as refugees from war-torn Bosnia. The family’s home and possessions had been destroyed, and Ms. Muretcehajic’s father, a soldier in the Bosnian army, had gone missing.
“I think about it all the time,” she said. “I don’t think I’d be the same person as I am today. It helps me appreciate things more.”
Though she remembers little of her life in Bosnia, Ms. Muretcehajic said as a woman there she would not have been encouraged to continue her schooling and find a career. But Tuesday night at the Chattanooga Trade and Convention Center, the East Ridge senior was honored for her academic achievement and determination at the 27th annual Superintendent’s Honors Banquet.
The awards ceremony honored about 250 students who represent the top 10 percent of their high school graduating classes based on their grade-point averages.
Superintendent Jim Scales said Tuesday he was proud of all the students honored and has offered each of them an open-ended contract to teach in Hamilton county Schools if any earn a Tennessee teacher license.
“Tonight’s activity is an extraordinary event,” Dr. Scales said. “It’s very noteworthy to finish in the top 10 percent academically.”
Ms. Muretcehajic, who boasts a 4.0 grade-point average and is enrolled in two advanced placement courses, said she plans to study pharmacology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and then at Vanderbilt University.
East Ridge principal Mark Bean said Ms. Muretcehajic, whom he said he considers an adopted daughter, is just one of the exemplary students honored Tuesday night.
“Mirzeta is one of the finest young ladies on the face of the earth,” he said.
The group of honor students from each school chose an elementary, middle and high school teacher they felt had most influenced them during their academic tenure, and the teachers also were recognized.
Kelli Gauthier covers K-12 education in Hamilton County for the Times Free Press. She started at the paper as an intern in 2006, crisscrossing the region writing feature stories from Pikeville, Tenn., to Lafayette, Ga. She also covered crime and courts before taking over the education beat in 2007. A native of Frederick, Md., Kelli came south to attend Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in print journalism. Before newspapers, ...
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