The Scholarship & Awards Committee of North Duplin Jr/Sr High School is pleased to announce Matthew Evans as the December Mount Olive Exchange Club & Duplin Rotary Club Student of the Month. Matthew is the son of Barry and Amy Evans of Kenansville, NC. He has been attending North Duplin since the ninth grade. Matthew is an excellent student who ranks #2 in his class. He was accepted into Governor’s School West his junior year of high school, and he was a junior marshal. Matthew is active in FFA and Beta Club at North Duplin. He is also on the varsity golf team and is active in his youth group at Bear Marsh Missionary Baptist Church.
Matthew has volunteered in a variety of community service activities, including Widows Giveback, Outlaw Foundation fundraisers, Operation Christmas Child, and Hurricane Florence cleanup. He has also worked throughout high school helping his dad with their business, Duplin Sod Farms. In his spare time, Matthew enjoys playing golf, investing and day trading, playing the piano, and photography.
When asked the one thing that he is most proud of, Matthew stated, “I am proud that I had the opportunity to go and help the Wallace community with clean up after Hurricane Florence in September 2018. Matthew was also asked who he would invite to dinner, past or present, if he had the chance. His response was, “If I could invite anyone to dinner, it would probably be Nikola Tesla. I have always enjoyed watching documentaries on Tesla’s inventions and I would love to sit down and discuss some of them with him.” Lastly, when asked who he most admires and looks up to, Matthew stated, “The person I admire and look up to the most is Elon Musk. The reason I look up to him so much is because of what he accomplished. At just the age of seventeen, Elon left South Africa to study at the collegiate level in the United States and Canada. After getting a Bachelor’s Degree, Elon went and started a company which today is known as Paypal. He then sold Paypal and used the money to start both Tesla and SpaceX, which are now multi-billion dollar companies. Elon said that he had to borrow money to rent during the early days of Tesla and SpaceX. This shows how dedicated and driven Elon is and it is a very big inspiration to me.”
Matthew has been accepted to The University of Mount Olive, and he is waiting to hear back from North Carolina State University, who will release acceptances at the end of January. He either wants to major in Engineering or Business & Economics. He would also love to take flight lessons in the future – Matthew has always been enthusiastic when it comes to aviation and flight school.
