Profile: Darius Smith

By AmberLynn Anderson

Seeing, hearing, and feeling things may be part of a normal day for most. But for 18-year-old Darius Smith, there are restricted or repetitive patterns of behavior. Smith has Asperger's syndrome.

He said he entered the Roanoke Times Minority Workshop with high hopes to improve his writing and possibly have a second option to his aspirations to become a civil engineer. He likes to write poems, some of which he has titled “Villanelles” and “Quatrains.” Smith said that he wishes to write an autobiography some day.

Asperger's is very particular disorder with linguistic and cognitive development, according to the medical Website webmd.com. This disorder belongs to a group of childhood disorders known as pervasive development disorders, the Website says. Most Asperger's patients view the world very differently. The exact cause of the disorder is still being researched, the Website said.

Smith was nine years old when he was diagnosed with the disorder. He said he sometimes feels his condition can hold him back, but that has not deterred him from being productive. He has people who support him, and family members to whom he looks up to, he said.

“My mother and I support each other in most choices that are made,” he said.

Smith said he feels that a lot of family members look up to him. For example, he said his three older sisters look up to him because of his success.

Smith said that he learned about the Minority Journalism Workshop after his mother saw an advertisement for it when she was using the newspaper to make papier-mâché. She told him she thought it was a good idea for him to go, he said.

He also said he expresses himself by relating to other people.

"I want to help others to reach their goals," he said. “I respect people who are trying to do some good for themselves."

Smith attended Memorial Middle and Benjamin Franklin Middle schools, he said. He described what it was like in school and how he was bullied or picked on for being so different.

But has remained optimistic. "I can do normal things," he said.

And he offers advice to other young people who have been diagnosed with the disorder:

"Just don't let it bother you -- use it to your full advantage. Be happy."

For more resources on Asperger's syndrome go to www.aspergersyndrome.org.

Profile: Tiffany Eng

By Victoria Liu



Over various dinner tables, eighth graders sit with teenagers in high school for 8th Grade Night: an annual event where recent band recruits meet kids in their instrumental section. Tiffany Eng was one of those eighth graders, and she remembers being timid and trying to impress the upperclassmen.

Now, as a senior at Hidden Valley High, she believes that band has taught her teamwork skills and how to step outside of her comfort zone. She admits her feelings of being afraid, but notes that becoming an adult will allow her to gain new freedoms and experiences.

“I let my race down by not learning how to play piano,” Eng jokingly remarks as she chuckles, a reference to her Asian heritage.

Instead of chords and harmonies played over ebony and ivory, Eng talks about her experience in marching band and Roanoke Youth Symphony. She plays the trombone, an instrument not often chosen by girls.

Her older brother’s experience, Spencer, as a trombone player in high school affected her decision between taking up clarinet or trombone.

Band isn’t just an important matter to Eng. At a school where football is a large part of the culture, it is inevitable that band becomes a part of school identity.

Band is exhausting but worth every minute, Eng said. “‘One band, one sound,’” she said, quoting the movie Drumline to refer to the family atmosphere that exists in spite of different instrumental sections.

She recalls a memory of her band attending a school game last winter.

“During the game my entire body was numb…my hands were shivering,” she said.

The team wore elf hats and fuzzy scarves they had received from goody bags, huddled together in packs to stay warm.

No matter how much passion Eng has for band, there are moments where it is difficult for her to be motivated because of its repetition.

But she may not play trombone in college, she said.

However, as section leader of brass, Eng wants to spread love of band to everyone else. After all, she asks, if no one else appreciates band, then what is the point in playing?

Still, there is no classical music on her iPod. She listens to Paramore, Taylor Swift and Forever the Sickest Kids.

Tour of Carilion Roanoke Memorial

Photos by Jared Soares.

Profile: Victoria Liu

By Tiffany Eng


To Victoria Liu, being American is driving down a long stretch of road, Route 66 style. Its blacktop with yellow dotted lines calls her name and the wind swims around her in a beat-up old van.

Being American is nibbling down on some corn on the cob and mashed potatoes while her friends in the background sing her a version of “Paparazzi” by Lady Gaga.

Liu was born and raised American in Roanoke, Va. She had a younger brother, two parents and friends — the only difference was her background.

Liu’s father grew up in Hong Kong, and that has changed who she is and how her life is diverse.

Her parents are from two completely different places with two completely different backgrounds but their one similarity? How they grew up. Both of Liu’s parents had what could be considered a hard life, she said.

Siuying Liu was growing up in an orphanage while Rebecca Liu, a Caucasian from Roanoke, was experiencing a troubled home life that included the worse kind of neglect and poverty.

"Compassion," Liu said when asked what her parents' childhoods had taught her.

In the summer of eighth grade, Liu's parents provided the opportunity for her to travel to Paris with E.F. Tours, where students across the country go to exotic places. With almost 40 other students accompanying her, Liu traveled to Paris, a place that her parents never had the chance to visit at her young age.

As a child, Rebecca Liu told her daughter that in her day, the only jobs that women could get was as a librarian, a teacher, a nurse or a stay-at-home mother. She described the feeling of being given a once in a lifetime opportunity as a sense of appreciation.

It was "a moment," Liu described, "gradual maturity" to realize how lucky she was to do so much in her life that her parents had not been able to do in theirs.

Liu can’t say she knows what it is like to grow up in such a difficult manner, but she knows what it is like to be loved and proud to be a true American.

Liu has always considered herself American, first and foremost, she said. Despite the fact that she has experienced Chinese culture through gifts and food, she has always regretted not having been more immersed in what her father has brought into her life, she said.

“Being American gives you a sense of freedom,” said Liu.

She explained that in the Chinese culture, children experience only what their parents want, whereas in America, children are able to explore their own likes and dislikes for themselves.

The sense of justice and pride are among her feelings of the American heritage that she shares with millions of others, and she remains proud to be an American.

Profile: Shaniqua Anderson

By Jamaica Pannell

Eyes crumpled and soaked in the tint of fury, fists unquestionable and prepared to strike -- this was how Shaniqua Anderson proclaimed her resentment in her past. It made it hard for students in class to even want to speak to her.

“I can’t stand you! Leave me alone,” she said. “Get up out of my face.” She doesn't remember how her friends responded.

But this young woman has been transformed.

Her poetry is a tension reliever for anger, she said.

Anderson, 16, felt very misunderstood because she says she felt like she didn't belong. She also noted that teenagers just didn't understand her and were too quick to judge. She wants to be heard, to be the center of attention and to be noticed, she said.

In her ninth grade English class at William Byrd High School, Anderson was assigned to work with two girls doing a poetry project that would be due in a couple of days. The girls would illustrate the images, and Anderson was to concentrate on the poetry verses.

She doesn't remember what set her off, but the amount of anger built into her was "unthinkable," she said. Her anger ruined multiple relationships, got her into lots of dilemmas and made her a bully.

After the poetry writing began, the changes worked well. Her mind went through a phase that is so hard to understand without the true experience and love to write, she said.

"I learned how to be respectful to myself as well as to others," Anderson said. "I had a huge heartfelt type of change. I could never go back to the way I was before." She became a new person.

“Things go right for so long, until you doubt the direction you took, and then everything goes wrong,” Anderson said after the change.

Later, she committed to writing poetry as a hobby. A poem of hers is called "Girl You Fake, Get Real."

Profile: Nephertitti Gray

By Bianca Moorman


Nephartitti Gray, 16, said that she thinks journalism is alright.

She has been writing poems and short stories since she was 9 or 10 years old.

She writes poems about random things, and there are reasons why.

Writing poems and stories help her to " release a lot of stress."
It helps Gray to express her feelings without hurting other people's feelings.

Gray writes poems about family and draws pictures, she said.She colors her pictures, too.The drawings tie into the poems and the stories that she writes.

In one of her stories, she wrote about why things happen in life, she said.

She wrote a poem for a competition at her school, and that the poem was based on one her short stories.

Gray said that she won second place for a poem that she had written, and the reward was that her poem was published in the school newspaper.

Only one person has read her poems and stories, and that person really liked them, she said. That person was her sister Aaliyah Gray, who is 13. Nephartitti said that her sister is the only whom she can trust with her personal business. She said that she is shy because she doesn't want everybody to know her business.

Gray goes to Northside High School in Roanoke, Va. Journalism might be a interest to her,but the career that she really wants to do is to be an anesthesiologist.

Profile: Jamaica Pannell

By Shaniqua Anderson


When Jamaica Pannell was in 6th grade, she had been cut on the back of her neck from a boy who had made a claw from paper. The claw that was wrapped around his finger was sharp and thick, so it became the weapon to continue to pick on her for his own amusement.

"Stop Stop," Pannell said. The tone of her voice was threatening. She reached her boiling point and became furious.

People picked on her all the time which had made her insecure about herself and also gave her low self esteem.

Writing is something that helps her get rid of her stress. She became so passionate for writing because of her rough times and also her upbringing.

“People are so quick these days to judge other people by the way they look or where they are from,“ she said.

Writing has become her way of expressing herself to other people when they won’t listen to what she has to say in person.

Pannell refuses to be immature, and treat other people badly, she said. She knows it won't do her any good and that it feels bad to be picked on for no apparent reason, she said. She wants to inform other people that she is a caring and smart person.

As a 16 year old, it's easy to be mean to other people, Pannell said.

“I want people to take the time to try to understand me rather than go by what they see,” Pannell said.

“I like to be creative in everything,” she said. She also has a passion for music and also playing the piano and saxophone.

Her creativity will most likely make her an artist of some sort when she graduates from Lord Botetourt High School.

She has learned so much about being creative at a young age, she said. Pannell recalls that she wants her voice to be heard, because she has felt misunderstood for a long time.

She has a great personality that she is ready to show the world but has never had the chance to do what her heart most desires. Pannell feels one day her voice will be heard, she said.

Profile: Bianca Moorman

By Nephertitti Gray

One day, when Bianca Moorman was six, she was sitting quietly in her family's living room and asked her grandmother, "Where did you come from?" The question ignited a fire in her grandmother, causing her grandmother to talk for hours about her family. The experience fueld Moorman's strong admiration for her family history.

Moorman, 17, and a rising senior at William Fleming High School, grew up in Roanoke and enjoys history.

“I think that it is interesting and you get different experiences from it,” Moorman said. She likes history topics that involve wars, slavery, Civil War and anything that happened before the 1970s.

Her great grandfather was one of 18 children and he had five children of his own, Moorman said. Her grandmother was the last of the five children. She grew up and went on to have 10 children. Out of those 10 children was Moorman's mother. But Moorman is an only child.

Moorman gets all of her information from her family by asking her grandmother and her aunt. Explaining her interest in learning her family history she jokes, "I don’t want to marry any of my cousins!"

She is not only interested in her family history, she said, but she likes to learn about Southern history and loves to read books such as John Steinbeck’s "The Grapes of Wrath" and Margaret Walker’s "Jubilee."

History isn't Moorman's only hobby, she said. She likes listening to music, including artists such as Trey Songz, Lil Wayne, and Lady GaGa. She also likes dancing recreationally at home, drawing self-portraits with pencil and paper and making people laugh.

Moorman's Yearbook adviser told her her writing has great potential, she said. But she said her love for history leads others to think that she has potential in teaching and keeping her family history alive.

Profile: AmberLynn Anderson

By Darius Smith


LEXINGTON – AmberLynn Anderson attends two high schools, when many high school students barely want to go to one.

Anderson, 17, is a rising high school senior at Christiansburg High School, but also attends Independence Secondary. She said she thinks that the teachers at Christiansburg really don’t care about their students, and that she likes Independence because the teachers there are passionate about their teaching.

One of her teachers at Independence has encouraged her interest in writing, she said.

“My teacher saw my interest in becoming a writer,” she said. “I want a better education.”

After waking up in the morning, she takes a bus to Christiansburg High School to take another bus to Independence Secondary, attending two classes there, and then going back to Christiansburg to attend a third class. After school, she takes a bus to Christiansburg Middle, where, after picking up middle school students, she goes home, she said.

One way that she’s expressing her interest in writing is by participating in the Minority Journalism Workshop, sponsored by the Roanoke Times. This annual event allows local high school students the opportunity to learn about the workings of the journalism industry, to participate in hands-on activities, and meet the people who make the news happen.

Anderson said that what made her interested in the workshop was her “passion for writing.” She also said that she is interested in getting an internship with the Roanoke Times.