Thousands of Cumberland County Schools high school seniors will walk across the graduation stage this week, turn their tassels from right to left and count themselves among the district’s alumni.
They will reminisce about their high school memories —inside jokes, winning sports games, time spent with friends or being able to say they completed what felt like impossible classes.
The Fayetteville Observer spoke to two of the district’s 17 outstanding seniors last week who reflected on their past few years and what’s next.
Their stories are as follows.
Meet all honorees: Introducing the Class of 2024 Standout Seniors at Cumberland County Schools
E.E. Smith senior accepted to 58 colleges, receives $2M in offers
Bryan “B.J.” Tillman started E.E. Smith High School amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He adjusted to distance learning and going back to in-person classes.
His first couple of years, Tillman said, were daunting.
He still didn’t know what he wanted to do when finishing high school. His father Bryan Tillman is the boys’ basketball coach at E.E. Smith High School. His mother, Quenna Tillman, is an exceptional children case manager teacher for the district, and his older sister Briyana was student body president and Miss E.E. Smith her senior year.
“I struggled with being involved,” Tillman said. “I remember bumping heads with my parents about it.”
Quenna Tillman said that her son was in the National Honor Society and had a 3.7 grade point average, but needed a nudge to forge his own path.
Tillman’s sister was the one who pushed him to become involved and join her in band, he said.
He also joined the Student Government Association.
“I like to call (my sister) my trailblazer because, without her, I feel like I wouldn’t be as inspired as I am today,” he said.
Tillman is senior class president and vice president of the National Honor Society and career development at E.E. Smith High School.
Tillman also developed a plan to apply to as many colleges and universities as possible.
The effort paid off, he and his parents said.
To date, he’s received 58 college acceptances and more than $2 million in scholarship offers.
“The acceptances just kept flowing in,” Tillman said.
Quenna Tillman said her son put in the work by taking Advanced Placement and honors courses, being in Fayetteville Technical Community College’s dual enrollment program, and bringing his GPA up to a 4.0.
During the application process, Tillman said, he was more drawn to historically Black colleges and universities.
His top three schools were North Carolina A&T in Greensboro, North Carolina Central University in Durham and Winston-Salem State University.
With college decision day on May 1, Tillman privately committed to attending North Carolina Central University.
He paid enrollment and housing application fees and planned to be in the school’s American Male Initiative and Summer Bridge Program, meaning he’dstart college two weeks after graduation.
The day he was ready to announce where he would go, Tillman received a call from Winston-Salem State University’s honors program offering him a full-ride scholarship.
His mother said they called the honors program director back and learned extra money was found to accept another chancellor scholar to the school.
Tillman’s sister happens to be a chancellor scholar at Winston-Salem, which is a rigorous process that involves different professors reading the applications, Quenna Tillman said.
Tillman said he plans to major in business administration with a concentration in finance.
He said he wants to establish an educational technical start-up for students and others like himself who don’t initially know what they want to do and also create a nonprofit that connects college students with high school students.
“I want to stress keep pushing the needle and compete with yourself to make yourself better,” Tillman said. “We at E.E. Smith are all about excellence … I think everybody I take classes with are successful in their own regard and inspire each other.”
Tillman said he credits his immediate family, his Golden Bull family at E.E. Smith and church family at Grace Tabernacle Christian Center.
His father said that he is proud of his son and “gives credit to God.”
“This boy has come a long way, and I’m so proud of him,” the elder Tillman said. “I feel like God is going to use him for something special … I think he’s going to be a blessing to our community and world as a whole, and I’m proud to be his dad.”
Quenna Tillman agreed and said that she hopes he inspires other young Black males to realize they can forge similar pathways and be represented in academic spaces.
“I just think he’s going to be a game changer,” she said.
Cape Fear High School standout tennis player
About 12 years ago, Anna Piland started to fall in love with tennis.
Piland said she remembers watching Serena Williams on TV.
“I was like, that’s cool. I want to do that. So by next Christmas, my parents got me this pink tennis racket, and I started taking tennis lessons,” she said.
Piland practiced and became involved in U.S. Tennis Association tournaments. By fifth grade, she was playing in Southeastern Closed Team championships, and she later started to represent North Carolina in clay court nationals.
“Once I got to high school, it was a lot more fun because I hadn’t been used to playing with a team environment before,” Piland said. “It was just so nice to have a group of girls that support you.”
Piland, who is a senior at Cape Fear High School, celebrated with her team when it won the doubles state championship her sophom*ore year, was runner-up at the state tennis championship the following year and won the dual teams state championships her sophom*ore and junior years.
More: Cape Fear tennis' Brooke Bieniek, Anna Piland set new standard as state champs
A favorite memory was playing first court during a regional finals game, she said.
“My match had gone on for three hours, and it was against a really strong player, and we had gone tiebreakers,” Piland said. “My match was going to be the deciding one, and as soon as I won that last point in the tiebreak, my team just ran onto the court and was hugging me,” Piland said.
Her last high school match this year marked her 100th win, too.
Piland said she credits the support of her parents, Christy and Howard Piland, and former coaches Nate McLauchlin and Chris Lucas, current coach Lee Osbourne and coaches at Cary Tennis Park, along with her high school teammates.
“We love watching her play, and just to see the growth and dedication she had, and how hard she’s worked and the time she’s put in, to see that come to fruition, it’s thrilling,” Christy Piland said.
Piland said she spends about 30-40 hours on tennis a week, with double practices four days a week and coaching at Cary Tennis Park, where she’s coached high school prep groups and the Tots and Aces program for the past three years.
Off the court, she’s balanced taking 13 Advanced Placement courses and will be graduating as an AP scholar with distinction.
This year, Piland took an extra AP class at 7 a.m. because the college she will be attending, the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, requires her to have AP chemistry.
She chose Caltech because she was “looking for a really strong academic school,” she said.
Piland plans to major in environmental science engineering, biology or both.
“I knew I wanted to make a difference because my passion is actually environmental science and trying to make the world a better place,” she said.
Piland also spends her spare time volunteering at the Duke Lemur Center in Durham.
She said Caltech's tennis program was another factor in her college decision.
“I wanted to go somewhere that I was super strong academically and have time for my tennis at the same time,” she said.
She’ll head to the school to join her new team in July.
Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3528.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Cumberland County Schools seniors shine in sports, clubs, academics
