Student sets an ambitious example

HOUSTON — Brandy Malidore just can’t seem to stop moving.

“I don’t even know if Brandy sleeps,” her business teacher, Kristopher Wagoner, said.

“I consider getting up at 8 o’clock sleeping in,” Malidore said.

“I’ll have to text her because I hear her walking (upstairs) above my bed. ‘Go to sleep!’” her mother, Kelly Malidore, said.

At 16 years old, Malidore has a schedule that resembles that of a high-powered executive. She’s involved in both the journalism and yearbook programs at Houston High School. She’s on Houston’s Business Professionals of America Team. She serves on Executive Board, Mat-Su’s district-wide student government organization.

And that’s not to mention that she’s taking extra classes, some through the University of Alaska, to graduate a year early or the things she considers hobbies — playing varsity volleyball, competing in the Native Youth Olympics and practicing the piano. Oh, and she works 25 hours a week at Denali Family Restaurant. And she spends part of her summer working at a youth camp.

“If I’m bored, then the stuff I have to do I won’t do,” she said.

Her mother said sometimes it’s hard to keep up.

“Most of the time I’m just running after her,” she said. “I’ve told her, ‘Brandy, you could do like 70 percent effort and still get an A.”

But that’s not how her daughter is wired.

“I want to see what I can create and what is possible for me to create,” Malidore said.

One could imagine that a girl involved in so many things might end up giving some of them less than her full attention. Wagoner said that is not the case with Malidore.

“Most people, when they’re growing up, they pick one thing and they make that their bread and butter. This girl can take on so many things and make them all her bread and butter,” Wagoner said.

Wagoner advises Houston’s BPA team. Malidore said it’s the thing she is most involved in and finds the most rewarding. Wagoner said that when he took on the program, he had nothing but a bunch of club accounts that were in arrears.

Last weekend, though, the team took top honors in a website design competition. They won $1,000 scholarships and earned a spot in the national competition in Washington, D.C.

“We got there, man. We got there and made it happen,” Wagoner said.

But sending the whole team would be unrealistic. They simply don’t have the funds. Without at least two members the team can’t compete. But he thinks that if he sends Malidore she’ll be able to scout things out and bring enthusiasm and information back to Houston for next year’s competition. Also, she’ll get to participate in a leadership school.

Hearing that, Malidore very quickly set to work raising funds. She needs to raise $5,000. And she’s already started emailing people, including the Frontiersman.

After graduation, Malidore said she wants to major in social work and minor in literature. She’d like to be an author, but wouldn’t mind being a social worker either. Maybe both.

Her mother said sometimes she has to sit Malidore down and explain that some of her varied activities conflict and sometimes she can’t do everything she wants to.

“You can’t do both. You’ve got to figure out how to do both or drop one,” she recalls telling her daughter.

“I don’t drop anything, by the way,” Malidore whispered as her mother finished talking.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.