Miss a day of school? Never, says DHS senior
Chauncey Goodson on the Darlington High School campus. Photo by Bobby Bryant
By Bobby Bryant, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
Think about this, everyone out there whose school days were filled with flu bugs, fevers, boxes of crumpled Kleenex, the “Monday Morning Stomach Virus” and just feeling too tired today for Mrs. Smith’s Algebra I agonies:
Chauncey Ryan Goodson of Darlington is 17, about to graduate from Darlington High School, and has never missed a day of school.
Ever.
In 12 years.
From first grade through senior year.
“It’s kind of like tradition,” Goodson says. “My mama didn’t miss a day of school. My first cousin didn’t miss a day of school. My uncle didn’t miss a day of school. It’s just like a tradition. It was kind of like, ‘I have to go to school.’”
It helped a lot, Goodson says, that she almost never gets sick. Maybe a cold here and there, but that’s about it. “I’ve never had to miss school for, like, the flu or chicken pox or something like that.”
At its May 13 meeting, the Darlington County school board recognized Goodson for 12 years’ perfect attendance. “It’s really not that hard,” she says. “Basically, I’m known for pushing myself … so I just pushed myself to do it.”
This year, Goodson admitted, has been somewhat tricky. “I’m involved in band. We have performances during the school day,” and she worried that she might be marked absent just because the band was playing at the time. But it all worked out.
Perfect attendance for 12 years: “It felt like a good accomplishment because that’s, like, really rare. You never hear people say, ‘Oh my gosh, I went to school for 12 years straight (without an absence).’
“That is very rare.”
Goodson’s parents are Courtney Goodson, who works at McLeod Regional Medical Center in Florence, and Samuel McClain, who works with ice supplier Reddy Ice.
Goodson plans to go to college to major in education and hopes her attendance record might help make an impression. And it ought to, she believes.
“I feel like there should be a scholarship (for graduates with perfect attendance),” Goodson says.
“I was looking online last night, and I was looking to see, well, ‘Why don’t they have a scholarship for perfect attendance?’ But I guess it’s so rare, they wouldn’t have one.”