Sun Lee decided that she might want to be an engineer after making a small train out of components created on a 3D printer.

After witnessing the troubles of the immigration system in El Paso, Texas, during a missionary trip with her church, Annabel Lewis is now driven to make a difference in the lives of those like…

Gazette Best and Brightest recipient Alexander Nguyen-Lopez was awarded the Bobby Lane Daniel Volunteer of the Year Award last year in recognition for his service to Colorado Springs. The Ramp…

This is the sixteenth in a series of 20 profiles of The Gazette’s Best and Brightest Class of 2019.

Growing up in a single-parent home inspired Aaliyah Ricketts to work hard to fulfill her dreams and never forget her mom’s numerous sacrifices.

The suicides of four classmates inspired Discovery Canyon Campus senior  Emma Weien to seize life, living each day as if it were her last.

Pine Creek High School senior, Leah Passafiume, encourages everyone around her to have a better sense of the hardships in life, whether it’s struggling with math or losing a loved-one in a tra…

Arjun Kudinoor who, along with his two schoolmates  spent a year and a half building a cyclotron. He's currently doing research on numerical and analytical magnetism with a UCCS professor. He …

Listening. Sam Brooks learned its importance thanks to a conversation with a friend on a topic on which they disagreed. Brooks and his friend reconciled their differences, and he was able to a…

Atlas Preparatory School senior Frank Hanson was born and raised in Accra, Ghana, moving to the United States with his brother when he was 12 years old, while their parents remained in Ghana. …

Four years ago, Anna Kemper was practicing gymnastics. She had done the vault mount countless times, but this time tripped over a mat and crashed into the springboard. The impact broke and dis…

Like many teenagers, Zoe Grisez, 17, loves grooving to the sounds of Taylor Swift, watching Harry Potter films and attending local Comic Cons. However, unlike many teenagers, Zoe each day grap…

Kirsten Ludwig leads her senior class at Fountain-Fort Carson High School in Student Council and cheers on her school’s sports teams, but she plans to give back even more by becoming a pediatr…

For Shalaka Natu doing “a little better than my best” isn’t just a refrain, it’s how she manages her education, community involvement and extracurricular activities.

This is the last of a series of 20 profiles of The Gazette's Best and Brightest Class of 2018. Colorado Springs Early Colleges junior Yulia Shtanko will not only graduate high school a year ea…

Ria Paradkar has been busy. The senior from Discovery Canyon Campus is a straight-A student, with a grade point average just shy of 4.8. Paradkar is a member of the National Honor Society, has…

This is another in the series of 20 profiles of The Gazette's Best and Brightest Class of 2018. Last year, when a former childhood friend Sam Laib died in an auto accident, Austin Spafford rec…

The definition of success changed for Isabel Harris in 2014 as pressure and anxiety forced a new perspective - shifting from unrelenting personal achievement to service and sacrifice. That doe…

When Hadeel Khammash arrived at an orphanage and camp in Jordan where refugees lived in painful limbo, she wondered if she could do the aid work. She cried over the heartbreak she encountered.…

Pine Creek High School senior Kennedy Caldwell personifies grit. Confined to a wheelchair at the age of 10, Caldwell uses her Spinal Muscular Atrophy diagnosis as motivation to excel in every …

This is another in the series of 20 profiles of The Gazette's Best and Brightest Class of 2018. Air Academy High School senior Carter Rodny cares deeply about helping others. "For many years, …

This is another in the series of 20 profiles of The Gazette's Best and Brightest Class of 2018. The positive influence of her kindergarten teacher is something Alexis Harris has carried throug…

This is another in the series of 20 profiles of The Gazette's Best and Brightest Class of 2018. Pine Creek High School senior Lindsay Mase learned to rely on herself at an early age, out of ne…

This is another in the series of 20 profiles of The Gazette's Best and Brightest Class of 2018. Kaige Jones is a self-made man. The Mitchell High School senior has three goals - before punchin…

Gracie Packard is drawn to stars, not movie idols or even those in the night sky, but the small gold sticky ones typically given to children to acknowledge work well done. There's nothing juve…