Superintendent’s Spotlight

Warwick Valley High School senior John Jack Carter has found all kinds of academic pursuits to take on and creative ways to express himself during his time at Warwick Valley High School especially when it comes to his passion for the environment.

Earlier this year, John Jack co-founded the WVHS Environmental Club with fellow seniors Dylan Torres and Christian Caruso. As club secretary, he helped lead a successful recycling campaign that raised enough money to purchase more than 25 new bins for the high school.

He was chosen for Superintendent’s Spotlight because he has approached all aspects of his high school life with the same enthusiasm and investment, including diverse activities such as the Wildcats Robotics team, being part of Studio Music Production, running for the Wildcats Track team, attending student leadership conferences, community service, and more, according to Superintendent David Leach.

This year, John Jack dug deeper into his interest in photography, an art form he uses to explore and appreciate the world around him and capture his perspective on the things he cherishes most, including the environment. A self-taught photographer who began shooting on his cell phone, has been impressing his family with his photos since he was young, even earning praise from a professional photographer in the family.

“I am very much an environmentalist,” he said, scrolling through his phone’s gallery of vibrant local landscapes that he’s taken. “I have around 600 pictures of the town of Warwick, and it is quite interesting just to see it change throughout the seasons. I realized one way I could probably help is by making sure [Warwick] stays like this.”

It was last year that John Jack decided to pursue photography more seriously and approached WVHS photography teacher Anna Penny for guidance. Together, they developed an Independent Study project for his senior year. John Jack and Ms. Penny have met every other week this year, and John Jack has been sharpening his technical skills, from framing a shot to color correction. He has even done some camera work for the WVTV student production team. More than anything, he enjoys sharing his view of the world with others.

“I always thought everyone saw things the same way,” he explained. “But then I realized through photography that people see things differently. I just want to show them how I see things.”

In the fall, John Jack is headed to Penn State to study civil and environmental engineering and work in the university’s research lab. It will be the fulfillment of a dream that he has had since the fourth grade, when his dad took him and his sister to a memorable bring your kid to work day.

“I vividly remember seeing all these advanced robots and them making ice cream with liquid nitrogen,” he said. “It stuck with me.”

His resulting eagerness to immerse himself in any engineering-related opportunity led John Jack to enroll in WVHS science teacher Andrew Warren’s Intro to Robotics class as a freshman. The following year, he was one of the first students to join the newly formed Wildcat’s Robotics team co-advised by Warren.

“Since Jack’s freshman year, he has not only developed great engineering skills, but he has also grown as a leader and as a mentor to younger students,” Warren said. He also shared that although John Jack is primarily a builder on the team, he earned the nickname “John Jack of All Trades” for his willingness to take on any task the team needed. Incidentally, the Wildcats Robotics team celebrated its most successful season yet this year!

With his sights set on becoming an engineer, John Jack has also worked hard on completing coursework in CAD, civil engineering and physics to achieve his goal. He has attended multiple summer leadership programs, including the National Student Leadership Conference at UC Berkeley, American Legion Boys’ State, and the Rotary Leadership Youth Award.

Throughout his rewarding and busy senior year, John Jack said he has found both a sense of calm and a sense of gratitude through photography. He enjoys immersing himself in the creative process, and enjoys the calm of focusing on a subject, observing its qualities, and trying to capture them in an image. John Jack’s work shows attention to the unique and evocative details of a scene or subject, evident in his environmental landscapes as well as in pics of his other favorite subject to photograph, his beloved dog Otis.

“It helps me see the colors in my life,” he said. “I always tell people to look for the colors in every scene and frame your image around them, it helps you notice the beauty that’s always there if you pay attention.”

With commencement just a few weeks away, John Jack is full of appreciation.

“I really want to thank my mom and dad,” he said. “They’ve been really instrumental in helping me. They’ve been there for all my track meets, always pushing me to go further than I thought possible. And Otis, too, just for being there, being my buddy on hikes and always keeping me company.”