Sixth grade student Karleigh Walker is the April 2025 Grand Deardorff State Farm Good Neighbor Student of the Month at Galena Middle School, where here teachers call her a “role model student.”
“Karleigh is a kind and sweet young lady,” her teachers said. “She is well-behaved and helpful in all things. She shows respect to peers, adults, and country. She is the role model student.”
Karleigh’s mother, Toshia Chesnut, also recognizes the many ways that Karleigh makes a difference for others. “Karleigh is friends with everyone, it doesn’t matter who their parents are, how they dress, or who they know,” Toshia says. “She wants everyone to have a friend and succeed in life.”
Vype Media interviewed Karleigh to get her thoughts on being the SEKS Grant Deardorff Good Neighbor April Student of the Month.
Q. How do you feel about winning the Student of the Month award?
I feel good about getting the Grant Deardorff State Farm Good Neighbor Award because I feel like everyone should have somebody who is nice to them, and I hope that me being nice to them makes them want to be a nicer person.
Q. Were you surprised that you won this award?
No, I was not surprised when I got the Grant Deardorff State Farm Award because all my teachers support me and say things to me like “Thank you for being nice to new people when it’s their first day of school!” Also, my counselor is always asking me to make sure that new kids feel welcome, and that they get to where they need to go.
Q. Your teachers nominated you for being a good student who is kind and sweet, well-behaved, and helpful to others. They said that you show respect to peers, adults, and your country, and are a role model student.
Karleigh, what drives you to be such a “Good Neighbor” to your classmates & teachers?
What drives me to be a good neighbor to my classmates and my friends is that I don’t really know what other people’s home lives are like and so just in case they don’t have a very good home life, I try and be nice to them. Also, ever since I was a little kid, I have heard the words, “Treat others the way you want to be treated.” Ever since I first heard those words, I have always been stuck by them.
Q. What do you want to do in the future when you grow up?
I want to be a teacher because I think that everyone can use a role model in their life, and I want to be that role model in students’ lives. Not everyone in the world has a good role model. I hope that when my students grow up, they will think of me as a role model.
Q. How will being a Good Neighbor figure into what you want to be?
Being a good neighbor will help me with being a teacher because if I tell students that I got an award for being so nice to people even when they are mean, that will make my students want to be nicer to people, too. It will help them to see things from my point of view and to know that they don’t have to be a bully. They will realize that if they are bullies, people won’t like them when they’re older.
We also asked Toshia Chesnut, Karleigh’s mom, if she was surprised that her daughter won this award.
I was not surprised when Karleigh received the award because she is honestly the greatest child … Working in child welfare, I have always tried to instill in her that someone may have a not-so-great home life and may be upset at school over something that happened; but that doesn’t make them bad people. Sometimes, being that friend in their life can change their whole thought process. I am incredibly proud of who she is and the young lady she is becoming.
Congratulations Karleigh for being our SEKS April 2025 – Grant Deardorff State Farm Good Neighbor Student of the Month!
