PRLHS teen takes tech to the next level

PRIEST RIVER — In talking with her grandmother at Christmas time, Priest River Lamanna High School senior Beverly Landeros realized some of her favorite gifts growing up were her Game Boy Advance, Nintendo NES and Apple iPod Touch.

“I have always had a love for technology,” Landeros said.

In recent years, she could be found recording the meetings for the West Bonner County School District through a live Facebook feed each month, or practicing for the CyberPatriot competition.

She has also been taking classes at North Idaho College since the beginning of her junior year.

“I had to wait until I was of age to do it, but I was ready to do it before then,” Landeros said, adding that you have to be 16 years old to take classes. “It’s kind of a bummer.”

Nevertheless, Landeros will graduate with her associate degree in general education in May, just prior to her high school graduation. She has a year of technical credits as well, she said, which will transfer toward her Bachelor of Applied Science degree. While she didn’t apply for the actual certificate, the technical credits are equal to a certificate in information technology, Landeros said.

The teen has been accepted to Green River College in Auburn, Wash., where she will head in the fall to begin her journey toward a BAS in network security and administration.

While Landeros said she has always loved technology, she really began to think of it as a career field during her freshman year. It was that summer, she said, when she was offered the opportunity to work in the IT department for the school district.

“It’s pretty cool,” she said. “I was an intern for three years, and then they let me go in December simply because it was a temporary position that extended longer than it was expected to.”

She is working at McDonald’s now, and said she “really” enjoys that as well.

Because of her interest in cybersecurity, Landeros put together a team for the CyberPatriot competition for her senior project. Her mentor, WBCSD technology director Ron Kruse, served as the team coach.

CyberPatriot’s National Youth Cyber Defense Competition puts teams of high school and middle school students in the position of newly hired IT professionals tasked with managing the network of a small company. Teams compete for the top placement within their region and state, and the top teams in the nation earn all-expense paid trips to Baltimore, Md., for the national finals. While the Priest River team didn’t make it to the national competition, they did compete at the state level recently.

“There is so much material to cover and try to become proficient at, most teams are actually encouraged to just focus on an operating system — try to get that down and be proficient at that,” Landeros said. “So we were impressed when we were able to go to state.”

Much of what they went over for the competition she had studied in her college just a couple weeks prior, she said, so that helped the team out as well.

In addition to working, going to high school, taking college classes and participating in cyber competitions, Landeros has undertaken several other activities as well. She has played softball, participated on the varsity soccer team for two years and has been in drama throughout high school. She recently participated in the final play of her high school career, performing as Captain Hook in “Peter Pan.”

She has also done a lot of volunteer work in the community with the Gear Up program, including playing bingo with nursing home residents, as well as helping out at the women’s shelter.

“I kept busy all through school and did all kinds of things,” Landeros said. “... When I was young I had a bit of behavioral issues in class, but that was because I was really bored. So when I was able to have the opportunity to do dual credit and just really apply myself and allow myself to excel at my own pace, I flourished.”

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.