A pair of Jacksonville students earn the valedictorian and salutatorian spots at their school and it’s the first time in the school’s history that both honors are held by black male students. When students graduated from Jean Ribault High School in Jacksonville earlier this week, the two top students in the class, valedictorian Jeffrey Francis and salutatorian Darrell Worrell made history. It was the first time in the school’s 65 year history that the two top spots were held by black male students.
Although they’ve been competing to be top of the senior class, Francis and Worrell are actually friends, not rivals. And even though they’ve been working hard for years to achieve the honors, it wasn’t always the goal. “Becoming salutatorian kind of more so fell in my lap," Worrell says. "I did work hard for it of course, but it definitely was like ‘oh, I’m moving up in ranks.’”
Both young men are not only graduating with their school’s top honors, they also both will graduate with their associate’s degrees already behind them. Francis is headed to FAMU where he wants to go into the medical field and Worrell is going to attend FSU and hopes to work in finance.
Source: FirstCoastNews