Santa Margarita Catholic High School

 

Lasting friendships, a close-knit community and teachers who are willing to go the extra mile for their students - these are just a few of the things Santa Margarita senior Jimmy Byron loves about SM.

 

"Being a student at SM made me feel like a member of a close knit community," Jimmy said. "It's a sense of feeling accepted."

 

At Santa Margarita, Jimmy runs track, serves as a student ambassador, is a member of the National Honor Society and participates in the school's Mock Trial Program. Jimmy also has taken Model United Nations classes for four years which allowed him to travel to conferences locally and abroad for mock meetings of the United Nations including a conference in London and Washington D.C. Through the program, Jimmy said he gained life skills including the art of compromise, public speaking, and finding solutions – skills he could one day put to use as a politician, he says.

 

The Santa Margarita senior is well on his way to a career in politics already landing his first job as a marketing assistant for the Richard Nixon Foundation at The Richard Nixon Presidential Library where he writes for the foundation website and helps put on special events. Through the job, Jimmy had the opportunity to meet former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, former Arkansas governor and potential GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and television host and political commentator Bill O'Reilly.