Post’s Top Senior of the Year is anything but the shy type

PATRICE JOHNSON | THE CHARLOTTE POST

Maya McClain, a senior at South Mecklenburg High School, is The Charlotte Post Foundation’s Top Senior of The Year. McClain will enroll as a freshman at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro.

There was a time when Maya McClain preferred the introverted life.

That was before Girl Scouts and Rosa Scarborough.

McClain, The Post’s Top Senior of the Year, was always an academic achiever. What she lacked, though, was confidence. Scouting was the stage Scarborough, as leader of Troop 569 at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, used to build it – from group projects to public speaking. 

“She would be well prepared for any presentation, but she was so timid that she would almost cry when she had to give it,” Scarborough said. “I was sitting at the back of the room and tell her, ‘I can't hear you.’ And I’ll put my hand to my ears – ‘I can’t hear you’ – until she got out of shyness to the point that she was able to speak before large crowds. 

“As a matter of fact, her last presentation went international. That's how well she presented herself as a Junior Girl Scout, not as a Cadet Girl Scout. … She did a civil rights project and she was so good, until somebody at the Girl Scout Council took it and ran with it, and it became an international presentation one Saturday morning on Zoom, and we had people all the way from Japan and Italy online listening to her project.”

Those lessons proved valuable.

“I used to be really shy when I was a kid, but (Scarborough) really helped push me out of my shell,” said McClain, a senior at South Mecklenburg High School. “She would call it ‘voluntold.’ She always volunteered me for roles. Whenever she asked somebody to do something or have a speaking role at one of our Girl Scout events, I would always be the last one to raise my hand, and she would pick me. I’d always be like, ‘Man, why is she always picking on me?’ But then I realized she was just trying to get me to become more outspoken and out of my shell. That has really worked, and it’s helped me grow into the person I am today.”

Scarborough’s mentorship was impactful. McClain, 17, who will enroll at North Carolina A&T State University in the fall, is confident, outgoing and an academic standout with a 4.58 grade point average. She’s also a campus and community leader who shows no hint of the retiring, demure youngster. That background inspires her to help people who might be in a similar situation.

“Because I grew up that way, it kind of gives me a special perspective into what it’s like to be in that kind of position, or what it’s like to feel that way,” she said. “I think the most important lesson I’ve been able to teach other people through my various activities in my community is that it doesn’t take much to use your voice, and at the end of the day, people want to hear what you have to say if you have a message behind it.”

McClain puts that confidence to work in the classroom by building relationships and advocating for herself as a student. 

“I feel like it helps me because I’m able to make strong connections with my teachers, and I’m able to advocate for myself when I need help,” she said. So, if I’m not doing well on a certain assignment, or maybe something’s affecting my academic performance, I have those teachers’ connections to kind of guide me, or I know that they’re there for me because they know me personally as a student.”

Said Scarborough: “Even though she’s very smart, very intelligent, very polite, she’s very humble. The fact that she has the ability to do well, she does not brag about what she can do and what she knows. She likes to help those who are having a little bit of difficulty to do what she needs. She makes it sound simple to somebody else.”

Beyond the classroom, where McClain is in Advanced Placement and honors course, she’s involved in extracurricular activities beyond academics. Among them: a toy drive at Paw Creek Elementary School, a service project in Belize as well as UNICEF, a United Nations agency that provides humanitarian and developmental aid for children in over 190 countries.

“I believe I’m a well-rounded individual, because not only do I like to focus on my academics, but I like to be very involved in my community and school,” she said. … “I like to do different community service clubs, such as those within school, because I feel like it’s a way to meet new people while also doing something good to help others outside of school. … I’m also a lifelong Girl Scout. I love scouting. It’s such a strong sisterhood, and it’s another great way I like to get involved in my community.”

McClain, who also considered offers from Wake Forest and Howard universities as well as UNC Chapel Hill is the second straight Top Senior of the Year to pick A&T, where she plans to study biology. 

“My dream is to become a pediatrician, so I’m going to be doing biology on the pre-med track, and then later I’m going to go into med school.”

McClain is looking forward to her college experience – it’s another opportunity to grow academically, socially and as an advocate. 

“Me and my parents (Tamara and Ernest) have been talking a lot about school, as well as some of me and my friends who are already in college,” she said. “They’ve been giving me advice. What I’m most excited for about college is one – obviously the freedom, the freedom to be away from my parents and to start making my own choices and doing my own things. But I think another thing I’m excited for about college is being able to meet new people, and I want to get very involved in school. I want to participate in different organizations and to lead community service projects.”

Said Scarborough: “The person that you talk to is just as delightful as she sounds.” 

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