Welcome to Mayor's Top Teens, I'm Liz Liano.

And today, we're going to be talking to Addison Wells.

Welcome Addison, and congratulations on being a Mayor's Top Teen.

Thank you.

So, we'd like to hear about what you do.

What are some of your activities?

What have you been up to?

So I'm super involved in my school student council.

I'm the student body president.

And I have taken lots of AP courses, and I'm really, really interested in studying kinesiology.

So I've taken a lot of psychology courses, which has been really fun.

I'm also involved in the Special Olympics and Best Buddies programs, and also the National Honor Society.

Very cool, that's a, that's a nice little list.

What does the, you said the Special Olympics Best Buddy program.

What does that entail?

So we like to include kids with special needs and activities like cornhole, basketball, kickball, and we host games at the different high schools.

And we also do luncheons every other week, which is really fun.

And we do little activities with them.

So that's been a really awesome experience too.

Oh, that sounds really sweet.

You do the best buddies.

And you also said you want to study kinesiology.

Yes.

And you've been taking psychology courses for that?

Yes.

I took a psychology course last semester.

Very nice.

So what made you want to, study kinesiology?

I originally wanted to be a physical therapist, but I did have a family member that was ill, and I got to watch the occupational therapist work with him, and it was really awesome experience just seeing her work.

And it made me very interested in the field.

So I thought kinesiology would be the best route.

Interesting, and what does an occupational therapist do?

From my perspective, it really helps their patient with day to day life activities such as tying your shoe, you know, getting out of bed, things like that after being sick, even having surgery.

So it's just a little bit more day to day then, physical therapist.

Very cool, very cool.

And so you study hard, you're working on kinesiology, your in the best buddy program.

What other, activities or community service things have you been doing?

I'm also a part of the LCPS Student Advisory Council and it's a club of students from all schools.

And we basically get to meet and collaborate for the district and get to present new ideas and opinions to the LCPS school board.

So that's also been a very cool experience for me.

And I've made a lot of different friends.

Got to go on trips to Santa Fe.

So that's also been really fun.

And I also play basketball, so that definitely keeps me busy.

And I'm super excited to start the club season coming up.

Wonderful, wonderful, sounds like you're really, putting yourself out there, making your voice heard, exercising a lot of your skills.

So where do you want to end up going to school?

I am planning on attending Texas Tech University on an academic scholarship next year.

Okay, cool to study kinesiology.

Yes.

Wonderful, so, you want to leave Las Cruces?

Definitely.

It's definitely been a goal of mine for a really long time to leave home.

Both of my parents did it, and so it was definitely something I wanted to carry on and have that experience for myself.

Wonderful, well, thank you so much for being here today, Addison, and I want to congratulate you again for being a Mayors Top Teen.

Thank you so much, I appreciate it.