06/08/2026
| About a month before her graduation, Tyanna Whitehead entered a Starbucks in Greensboro wearing a tiny pink swim float around her waist and matching swim goggles on her head. She hobbled on crutches, looking a little nervously around the parking lot. She had sprained her ankle during a soccer game the night before and moved slower than she normally would. She hoped no one from her school saw her in the parking lot.
Her classmates at Northeast Guilford High were participating in a game called Senior Assassins. It’s a student-organized elimination game where high school seniors use water guns to “tag” assigned targets to win a prize—or bragging rights. As long as she was wearing her float and goggles, she was “Safe.”
Whitehead has one of those 2,000-watt smiles that’s impossible not to respond to. After graduation, she plans to earn her welding certification and diploma at GTCC. She’s one of few female welding students in the program. She picked it up from her dad because he liked to weld things at home.
Read more of Tyanna's story at www.gcsnc.com/graduation.
