[Times photo: John Pendygraft]
Yvonne Hoover, 17, shows her award for 13 years of perfect attendance. "I just really, really liked school," she said. School officials say she is the second to do so.

By MELANIE AVE, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 7, 2002

TAMPA -- What Cal Ripken is to baseball, Yvonne Hoover is to school attendance.

From kindergarten through her senior year, Yvonne, 17, never missed a day. Never. For 13 years.

When she graduated from Sickles High School this spring without one absent mark on her record, the lanky girl with the shy smile fulfilled a goal she set in elementary school.

"I just really, really liked school," Yvonne said.

Hillsborough school officials know of only one other student who has equaled her feat, an Armwood High School graduate in 1994.

"It's pretty incredible, almost nonexistent," said Sickles High principal Nuri Ayres. "To think this young lady took her education so seriously."

As thousands of students return to school this week, school leaders said Yvonne's accomplishment shows the strong link between attendance and grades. With a 4.9 grade point average, she graduated 41st in her class and earned a scholarship to Wingate University in North Carolina.

Other students, even adults, could learn from her tenacity and commitment.

"It indicates dependability and dedication," said Hillsborough deputy superintendent Beth Shields. "It's extreme."

It began when Yvonne was a kindergartener at Dickenson Elementary School. She fell in love with school and decided then and there she wasn't going to miss a day.

Luckily, she contracted chicken pox the summer before first grade started. Other serious illnesses were kept at bay.

By the end of fifth grade, Yvonne's attendance record was spotless, and her goal firmly entrenched.

It was then that she read a newspaper article about the Armwood High boy who never missed a day.

"I couldn't let him beat me," she said.

Connie Hoover said her daughter always wanted to make good grades. She felt that if she missed school, she would miss out on learning.

"There were days she would get up nauseated or she had neck problems, but she would still get up and go," Hoover said. "I remember one time she was sick to her stomach. The vice principal at Stewart Middle School called me and said, 'Will you come and get her?' I said, 'I will. But will she come with me?' "

The vice principal told her Yvonne refused to leave.

"I said that's her choice," Hoover said. "Being me, I understood."

During a 20-year career at Pitney Bowes, Hoover said, she has called in sick only once: when her husband left her when she was pregnant with Yvonne.

"I'm a stickler that way," Hoover said.

Hoover said her mother, Betty Jones, also was committed to her job. When she retired from Hillsborough County schools as a cafeteria worker in 1994 after 29 years, Jones had a year's worth of sick pay saved up.

"I guess you call it stubbornness," Hoover said.

She recalls a time when she took Yvonne to the doctor on a Sunday after the girl contracted strep throat. He told her she needed to stay home the next day.

"She said, uh uh," Hoover said. "So he gave her a double shot of penicillin."

When Monday morning rolled around, Yvonne was in class.

Through the years, Yvonne toughed it out through personal struggles in eighth grade and senior skip days in high school. Even when her friends begged her to take a day off from school just for fun, she said no way.

Yvonne admits she is a bit embarrassed and conflicted about her perfect attendance record, but she also is proud.

By the time she reached high school, she became more fearful of failing to reach her goal.

"It was hard and stressful," Yvonne said. "I'm relieved it's over."

Yvonne doesn't plan on duplicating her attendance record in college. She wants to be a little more relaxed as she pursues a degree in biology. One day, she hopes to work with gorillas and apes.

But her sister, 5-year-old Kimberly, may be another story.

Last year when she was in kindergarten at Dickenson, the school called Hoover to take the girl home because of several mosquito bites on her face. School officials thought it was a rash.

"She got really upset" about potentially missing a day of school, Hoover said.

So Hoover took her youngest daughter to the doctor, who cleared the way for her return an hour later.

Kimberly was thrilled to return, her attendance record unscathed.

"She said she wants to be like her sister," Hoover said. "Her sister says, 'No, don't do it.' "

-- Melanie Ave can be reached at (813) 226-3400 or melanie@sptimes.com.

Back to Tampa Bay area news

Back

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright

Special Links

Mary Jo Melone

Howard Troxler

Headlines
From the Times
local news desks