AMY SZPARA

RESERVE – A family vacation to Alaska where she climbed glaciers and saw whales is among her favorite memories. Recollections of hour-and-a-half sunsets, cruising through Alaskan waters and taking in the sights make her smile and cheerily talk about her loving family and the trip they took together. It’s not just the beauty of the land that makes her grin, but she loves to think about her mother and father and sister and brothers. Family is the most important thing in her world. “I love to do family things,” said Jenny Frederick, 16, a Reserve Christian School sophomore who cherishes family values and Christian life. “I’m a real home body. I love to be around my family, go camping with them. We’re all really close.” Frederick, a first-year student at Reserve Christian, said that she likes the small school, her Bible class and the Christian ideals taught at the school. She has a 4.0 grade point average. Frederick loves sports, and she plays basketball, softball and soccer at Little Farms Playground in River Ridge, an organization created in the community to involve kids in sports. Aside from family and sports, Frederick also enjoys sketching and painting. She said she likes drawing New Orleans scenes, including streetcars and the scenery along the streets. “I’ll be looking around and if I see something I like, I just draw it,” she said. “I like the French Quarter, the pretty scenery.” She entered a McDonald’s charity drawing contest a few years ago and received an honorable mention for a cabin scene. “I love Bob Ross,” Frederick said of the famous television artist who paints outdoor scenes. She added her father bought her Ross tapes for Christmas so that she could paint “happy little trees and clouds,” as Ross does. Frederick said her art comes from the family vacations that she takes. She enjoys tranquil scenes she finds when camping with the family. “My art comes from nature,” she said. Though Frederick wants to pursue her art and take some art classes, stating she doesn’t want to limit her artistic ability, her biggest dream is to have her own large family someday. “I come from a big family, so I want to have a big family myself,” said Frederick, who has set her sites on having six children after she marries. The family-oriented youth is already considering colleges, though she wants to find one as close to home as possible. She said she would prefer a small, Christian college. She hopes to study art while there.