Senior year is the time to shine. As the final year comes to an end, colleges are looking for the best of the best. However, this star student with phenomenal grades has a resume to beat them all. Matthew Lehman, senior, is an astounding student with a heart for helping others and changing the world.

Matthew Lehman, most commonly referred to as “Matt” by teachers and peers, could be considered a “perfect student.” With a nearly perfect GPA, involvement in over eight clubs and honor societies, and a leadership position in four of them, Matt’s school record is truly astounding. As a senior, he has already surpassed the goals of many.

Lehman is the President of FBLA–Future Business Leaders of America–and has been involved in the club for all four years of his high school career. He acknowledged that he joined the club because of his strong passion for math and other STEM-related fields. As his dedication to the group expanded, he found himself as their president for the second year in a row.  On the heels of that accomplishment, another achievement under Matt’s belt is being nominated as Central’s Business Pathfinder nominee this year.  

“It was awesome to become the Pathfinder for Business,” Lehman noted. “I was able to show how I learned the operations of a business environment and how to be a successful adult in the future.  I was the president of FBLA for two years, so I was very happy to show my dedication to business in high school.”

SECME, which stands for Science, Engineering, Communication, Mathematics, and Enrichment, is another club in which this gregarious Bronco has taken the lead. Although SECME is currently on hold this year because of COVID, Matt was the vice president last year. As VP,  his main role was preparing for the club’s annual Olympiad event.  He also worked with the other members to plan the club’s activities. 

Rho Kappa is yet another leadership position that Matt has under his belt. Matt is the secretary for Rho Kappa, the History Honor Society, because of his passion for history as well.

While all of these accomplishments may seem impressive, Matt believes his proudest achievement was when he became the Internal Overall for National Honor Society’s Dance Marathon. Dance Marathon’s mission is to raise money for Children’s Miracle Network, a nonprofit that helps kids with health issues and whose families are unable to afford costly surgeries and treatments.

“I joined NHS to work in Dance Marathon because of how much I love the cause that it stands for,” Matthew said.

Lehman’s job is to ensure that Dance Marathon, an 8-hour “no sitting” fundraising event, goes as smoothly as possible by leading the NHS team through this COVID quagmire.  In this position, he must oversee four committees for the event: productions (which handles posters, decorations, and music), dancer engagement (which is responsible for keeping everyone on their feet and having fun), fundraising and tracking (which oversees how much money is coming in and who is reaching their goals), and merchandise.   

One such obstacle that COVID has thrown at Matt and his team was the lip dub event.  This event normally involves all of NHS as well as other clubs and students and faculty lip syncing and dancing to a track of songs.   For the sake of social distancing, Matt, along with Skyler Finkel and Isabella Thomas, cut music for each group or individual, emailed the portion of the song they were to lip sync to, and edited the video together.

Having to lead so many clubs and honor societies truly do take a team to accomplish their lofty goals. Fortunately, Matt is no stranger to teamwork and tends to work well with others.

“He’s my best friend so we have both a personal relationship and a working relationship which has its pros and cons, but overall it’s so fun being able to work alongside him as my co-overall,” expressed Skylar Finkel, senior and External Overall for Dance Marathon. “We definitely tell each other things how they are which because we’ve been friends for so long, so this way things get done properly and timely. After being an Overall previously, it is nice to have my best friend by my side for this second round, especially in these unfortunate times.”

Lehman does all of this while continuing with the arduous task of maintaining his grades. While being in the top 10 percent, Matt works hard to ensure his stellar academic record with high marks in AP and AICE classes holds strong.  Because of his hard work and involvement in school, Lehman went ahead and applied to  UF, UM, UCF, Georgia Tech, Embry Riddle, FSU and Duke.  His choice school is UF where he would like to double major in aerospace and mechanical engineering.  

“Matt is someone who other students should look to as a role model because he shows that you can maintain high grades in difficult classes while still being involved in the school and in the community,” explained Ms. Elder, who has him as a student in Central’s Engineering Academy. “I’m not sure how he finds time to sleep, but I really sure hope he does!”