Whether it’s her bright and bubbly personality shining through at Interact Club meetings, her enthusiastic smile radiating across the field when cheering or her selflessness in caring for others, Stephanie Xiao (12) never fails to make an impression.

You can always find Stephanie standing on the field during every football game dressed in full cheer attire — a white, green and black dress accompanied by shiny, golden pompoms — cheering on the team. While her skills have grown and progressed throughout high school, her love for gymnastics stemmed from her childhood.

“When I was really little, I turned my parents’ room into my own home gym,” Stephanie said. “Basically, I was really obsessed with gymnastics, but they thought that it was too dangerous. Secretly, I turned their bed into a vault, took yoga mats and put them four inches apart to make a beam and used the open space as my floor. I was really creative in the way that I turned their space into my space. It took a lot of months, but that was where I taught myself how to do a somersault, cartwheel and front walkover.”

Constantly eager to improve her skills, Stephanie focuses and concentrates on bettering herself, endlessly striving and working towards her goals. But, her main reasons for continuing cheer are the connections that are formed and the overall closeness of the team.

“Cheer is really about the team members,” Stephanie said. “We really bonded, and we do a lot of sleepovers and events together. At the away games, we get ready and get food, and we’ve just grown into a family.”

Aside from cheer, she also leads Harker’s Interact Club as the president and actively participates in charity events, including projects relating to the prevention of human trafficking. Through Interact, she has witnessed the positive impact that these projects have made on communities, calling it incredibly “eye-opening.”

“What initially struck me about her was how driven and enthusiastic she was, and I’ve definitely seen her translate this same passion to everything she does,” fellow cheer teammate and friend Kelly Shen (12) said. “She truly cares about the things she devotes her time to, whether that’s cheerleading or art or serving her community, and she never loses sight of her end goal.”

From engaging in similar activities as her older sister Kevina, such as cheer, Honor Council, Interact and orchestra, Stephanie perfectly resembles her sister on the surface. Though her initial interests may have originated from her sister, Stephanie has found ways to incorporate her own personality and transfer these skills into different aspects of her life.

“Since I was little, I would follow in my sister’s footsteps — it was just something that I was used to,” she said. “It was more obvious at the beginning of high school, but now my parents can see that we’re two different people and we’re taking two different paths. I feel like recently, even though I followed the original steps that she took, I’ve been able to find my own voice, take the leaderships skills I learned from cheer and apply it to honor council to become a more extroverted person.”

Stephanie’s kindness is evident, and no matter the situation present, she still maintains a spirit of optimism and liveliness.

“She’s very open-minded, hardworking, and makes the best of any situation she’s in,” Stephanie’s former Mandarin teacher Dr. Shaun Kelly Jahshan said. “She’s been more willing to try new things, stretch herself a bit and see things from a different perspective. I saw her working with different personalities and ideas and she was really the glue that brought them together.”

While Stephanie dedicates a majority of her time to cheer and Interact, she also devotes her energy into building and strengthening her relationships. Even with her busy schedule, she always finds time to invest in her friendships and constantly maintains an upbeat attitude.

“I can talk about literally anything with Stephanie,” her friend Constance Horng (12) said. “We have the funniest conversations where we just laugh forever, or we just rant about random things. We both stay up super late, so I’ll text her at 1 a.m. when everyone’s asleep, and she always responds. She’s definitely a friend who’s always there for you.”