SPENCER — When Meredith Lentz leaves for high school in the morning, her family is never too far away.

Her mother works in the school library. Her grandparents live beside campus.

In fact, North Rowan High School sits just across the street from the brick house where Lentz lives. It’s so close she often walks home for lunch. There have been times when her parents were home and heard her name broadcast over the school intercom.

“I would come home and Dad would say, ‘We heard you on the announcements today,’ ” Lentz said last week while she took a break from Advanced Placement tests at school.

Some teens would find such a close family suffocating. But Lentz says support from her parents helped propel her to become valedictorian of her class. She’s also the only high school senior in Rowan County this year to receive the Morehead Scholarship, a fully-paid ticket to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“I went to all three North (district) schools,” Lentz said. “I’ve always lived within walking distance of them.

“ ... I’ve just always been surrounded by family support. Knowing you have that backing really gave me the confidence to succeed.”

Lentz has some advice for her younger brother, Nicholas, and all the others who will enter North Rowan High for the first time next year.

“Try to reach your own potential,” she offered. “A lot of times at North there are expectations in the community, definitely not among the teachers, that are lower than what students can really achieve.”

Lentz has always had a close family.

Her mother, a former piano teacher, began teaching her on the keys when she was in first grade. Recently Lentz won an award for playing 15 pieces of music by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Asked how she makes time to practice piano with so many AP courses, she said that music helps her study. “I have to have my practice time so I can study,” she said. “It calms me down. Music is a big part of my life.”

Lentz racked up a 4.783 grade point average by the end of last semester. A tennis player and president of the student council at North Rowan High, she kept stats last season for her uncle, Kelly Everhart, coach of the men’s varsity basketball team.

She is a member of Key Club and frequently visits three women at the Lutheran Nursing Home. “They don’t get many visitors so it helps them,” she said.

At her family’s church, Central United Methodist, Lentz plays handbells and sings in the choir.

Two weeks ago she traveled across the country to San Jose, Calif. for a national science contest. To study treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease, she created a computer simulation of enzyme reactions.

Lentz says she won’t forget the halls lined with bright green lockers at North Rowan High. She plans to major in biology at UNC-Chapel Hill and possibly pursue medical research in graduate school at Wake Forest University.

“I’m going to go as long as I can because it’s too hard to start back (at college) later,” she said.

Will Lentz return to Rowan County after all those years of college? Or, as with many high school graduates, will the big city lights lure her away?

“I used to say I love the city,” Lentz said. “I once went to Boston with my family and said, ‘This is where I want to live.’

“I’d like to come back someday. But I definitely want to live several other places first.”