Standout Student: Park Center’s Ashuntes Bounds
Every day, students go to school to learn. But some lessons aren’t found in any textbook. For Park Center senior Ashuntes Bounds, she discovered that she’s a people person.
“I actually really love the people at Park Center,” Bounds said. “Everybody that I talk to, they’re always happy. They enjoy me as a person. So that’s a really good thing.”
Teachers say that people are drawn to Bounds. She uses her skills to welcome incoming freshmen to Park Center as part of the school’s link crew, and she also spreads her positive attitude to classmates.
“I have a distinct memory of students performing poetry, something very personal,” said Kristin Hoffman, a Park Center English teacher. “And after every poem, she said, we have to clap. We have to say good job. And so she got the whole class to start clapping and standing up and giving ‘attaboys’ to everybody.”
Ashuntes Bounds is a senior at Park Center Senior High.
That positive spirit serves Bounds in other ways as well.
While many students take years to determine their path in life, Bounds had it all figured out before she even entered high school.
“I’ve actually been a stylist since I was 12,” she said. “I’ve been doing my own hair since I was 12. I started doing other people’s hair when I was like, 14, and now I got my first shop when I was 16.”
When Bounds isn’t in school, she’s using her hair styling talents to make people look their best at her shop in Brooklyn Center. It’s a profession where people skills come in handy.
“I get excited cause I like helping people,” Bounds said. “So it’s like, oh let’s make a plan. Let’s make a vision board. So yeah, I get excited with stuff like that.”
It’s a significant accomplishment for someone her age, and her teachers see big things for her future.
“She’s just doing great,” Hoffman said. “So I can really see her taking this and having employees and mentoring people; and I can see her, like even coming back to school here and speaking in some of our business classes and art classes and just showing people ‘hey, you can do this.’”
Park Center Senior High School
