She’s ‘not one you’re going to forget.’ Dutch Fork grad turns tragedy to inspiration
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Outstanding 2021 Midlands Graduates
This past year has been a challenging one for most — especially our high school seniors. They shifted to virtual learning and missed out on some the best memories and traditions from high school. The State is highlighting a series of 2021 Midlands grads who have beat the biggest odds, set a high bar for serving and achieving and inspire us to make no excuses in the pursuit of our highest potential. Meet them here.
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Growing up in California, a young Claudia Byun spent a lot of time at hospitals after school. She was just 9 years old when her father died of lung cancer.
The nurses by her dad’s side were beside her as well. They treated her, a young stranger, like family.
“There was this nurse who always saw me in the corner and made sure to talk to me, to get me stuff or something to draw on so I would be occupied,” Byun said. “I didn’t think much of it at that age, but now it’s like, we were just a family of strangers, and she was so kind and empathetic to us.”
Her dad’s death and the nurses who supported her through it have inspired the next steps Byun will take after walking across the graduation stage at Dutch Fork High School. Come fall, she’s off to Georgetown University to study nursing.
After Byun’s dad died, she moved to South Carolina with her mom and older sister. She struggled to find friends since everyone already knew each other in her fifth grade class.
In middle school, she had the opportunity to meet some lifelong friends, she said, but she never forgot the feeling of being left out. So she joined an anti-bullying club in eighth grade, called ACTION (Assisting Communities Together Inspiring Our Neighbors).
“You hear her story— and she’s willing to share her story, but she doesn’t wear her story on her sleeve. It helped make her who she is, but it’s not who she is,” said Barry Lindler, the STEM Coordinator at Dutch Fork High School and Byun’s ninth grade computer programming teacher.
Byun helped coordinate Dutch Fork’s STEMposium her junior year and would’ve helped her senior year if not for the coronavirus pandemic. STEMposium is a student-made event created to share the wonders of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields and to help end the stigma that enjoying these subjects makes someone a “nerd,” Byun said.
“She is unusual in that she’s equally comfortable in the role as leader as she is in the role as follower,” said Lindler.
Byun’s future home, Georgetown, is ranked the 23rd best school in the nation by U.S. News and World Report and has a 14% acceptance rate. Byun took the most rigorous Advanced Placement and STEM honor magnet classes at Dutch Fork and scored 4s and 5s on her AP tests.
On top of her classroom success, Byun played flute in the South Carolina All-State Band, along with several other extracurricular activities that made her a “relentless academic competitor,” according to her school.
Byun never imagined she’d spend her last year of high school entirely online, fighting through a worldwide pandemic. But she chose to protect her family from COVID-19 by staying at home, she said.
“It was definitely a difficult decision because I kind of have a selfish side where I wanted to have a normal senior year, but I think I made the right decision in the end,” Byun said.
Her last summer before moving to Washington, D.C., will be spent making up for lost time and cherishing family and friends, Byun said.
“Claudia’s not one you’re going to forget,” said Lindler. “She’s going to leave a legacy and a story that we continue to tell for years to come.”
