Salutatorian's Key to Success: Self Motivation

After four years of high school, salutatorian Frederick "Fred" Heller is ready for his next step in life: Duke University.

"I went in April, and it was beautiful. That's kind of what pushed me there a little bit," Heller said. "I run, and they have a lot of nice trails and areas to run in."

After four years of three seasons of track, Heller, who graduates Thursday with the rest of the class of 2012, won't be joining any track teams at Duke. He does plan to keep running on his own. "There's always been a lot of structure in [running]. Now it's just kind of, see what you can do on your own, which is nice."

If he can't manage it alone, he said he'll look for an extracurricular team or club to run with.

Heller admits he "stumbled" onto track. "I couldn't throw a ball, and I wanted to be on a team, and the track team didn't make cuts," he said. "So it fit like a glove."

Like valedictorian Amy Lee, Heller, 17, started his high school career in another district. His family moved from Caldwell to Chatham the summer before his junior year, and summer track practices provided an easy way to make friends with his new schoolmates.

"I sent emails to the coach [Patrick Barry] before the school year started," Heller said. The students, he said, "were very welcoming, and I feel like it didn't take long until I felt like a part of the Chatham community."

Bruce Heller, Fred's father, said his wife Marisa was concerned about moving, even a short distance, with two boys in school. With both Fred and his younger brother Philip, now a rising sophomore at , involved in athletics, "they made friends quickly."

Heller said his teammates and classmates remembered his name and asked him about his favorite bands. "So then the next conversation, you get called in. As time goes on and you sit in class with them, the more you have to talk with them about. You can opine on stuff, say 'I like this teacher' or 'I don't like that teacher.'"

Now that he is getting ready for college, "I feel like [moving] is a good experience to have under my belt so recently, because it's a similar situation. You're excited, you're nervous, you're going to a new place."

By the time it came for Heller to apply to colleges, he had even participated in the Chatham Performing Arts Club talent show, emceeing the event and telling jokes between acts. It was the first time he'd done anything like that, he said, since he sang the Pokemon theme song in a talent show at day camp in elementary school.

"it was nerve-wracking, and it was kind of a blur," he said. "I stumbled on stage."

In the Heller household, responsibility and good behavior are rewarded with a certain measure of freedom. According to his father Bruce, Heller was "always very self-motivated. When you have that in a child, you sort of let them go and run with the ball, as far as I’m concerned."

That self-motivation has kept Heller's grades up despite other pulls on his time, such as track, his love of music and bands ("I went to go see The Black Keys recently, and The Arctic Monkey opened for them. That was pretty cool," he said) and "watching more TV than I should."

Fred said his parents were never "helicopter [parents]. ... We've gone out to dinner for good report cards, but we've gone out to dinner for shaky report cards, too."

Heller admits he was hit by a case of senior-itis, but "nothing too horrible. ... It [school] is a habit, and it's interesting. I took classes [this year] that I wanted to know about, so it's not like I stopped putting forth effort."

Among his classes this year were physics, biology, calculus and psychology. Heller hopes to study medicine and become a doctor.

"I've been thinking about it for a while," he said. "Medicine just feels like a field with really tangible results. You can look at what you've done and say, 'That's really important, what I just did right there.' I think I would enjoy it, both the doing of it and the sitting back down and the end of the day and being like, 'Good for me.'"

In academics, Bruce said of Fred, "he was doing well extremely well all though school, so there was no need to try to control him." When Fred encountered setbacks, Bruce said, "he seems to handle most things pretty well. There might be an initial shock for some things, but he does handle them."

Until he moves to North Carolina for school, Heller hopes to find a summer job. He has applied to at least one bakery. "I love baked goods, I love baked goods," he said. "I always thought if I ever stopped running, if I just get out of it for a little bit, it's going to be like that girl from 'Willy Wonka' [Violet Beauregarde]."

When he does start at Duke, Bruce said, it will be the first time he has lived away from home. "He went to day camps, but he never went to sleep-away camps," Bruce said. "That might be a bit of an awakening for him."

Still, Bruce said, after "almost 18 years in the making, if he’s not ready now another two months isn’t going to make him any more ready. But I think he’s ready."