Derik Kidd and Ariel Whatley said they could write a book on the awesome things the staff at Escambia County High School have done for them the last four years.

Kidd is the class of 2017’s valedictorian and Whatley is the salutatorian.

“We really learned a lot,” Whatley said. “Our teachers here, they’ve done everything they could to give us all of the knowledge we need to introduce us to this world we’re about to go into,” she said. “The staff at the high school, every single one of them taught us a lot of things. They have always opened our eyes and see us in a different light. The band director (Hayley Canterbury), she’s been a great influence on us. Mr. Salter has been a great, too.”

Participating in band is one of the many things Kidd and Whatley do for extra curricular activities.

Whatley is in the Scholars Bowl, the Student Government Association, the marching band and the National Honor Society. She was also on the Science Olympiad and participated in Teens Getting Involved for the Future.

Kidd, along with being in the jazz and symphonic band, participated on the Science Olympiad and is in NHS.

For more than six months, Kidd has been helping around the house because his father, Derik Kidd, passed away in October 2016.

Kidd said his mom, Chandra, has been helping his sister, Sasha, and him and is a great influence.

“I’m not really much of the type to take charge,” he said. “It’s really just been my

mom taking care of my sister and I. It was kind of a complicated situation when my dad was alive because they were divorced. They still did what they needed to do.

“They got a long together even though they were divorced and took care of us,” he said. “He usually took care of us. When he had to take care of his mom in Pensacola (Fla.), he had to drive back and forth the whole month of July.”

This fall, Whatley is going to Troy University and Kidd is attending Huntingdon College in Montgomery.

Whatley said she’s going to major in science education and minor in writing so she can be a textbook writer. Her mom, Barbara, has been a teacher at ECHS for the past 12 years.

Kidd said he’s going to major in biochemistry, and hopes to work for a private corporation researching the safety of products.

“I believe he’s going to find a cure for cancer,” Whatley said about Kidd.

Both Whatley and Kidd will graduate with around a 4.0 grade point average this month.

When asked what subject each excelled in more than others in high school, both said something similar.

“I would either say English or science,” Whatley said. “With my mom being a science teacher, I love science and English.”

For Kidd, he said all of his courses, he feels, are the same.

“My favorite was science,” he said. “Chemistry and biology are my favorite. Since I took biology so many times, I took it twice in dual enrollment, it kind of came naturally to me.”

A typical theme for the top students in each high school class is competition.

Whatley said they’ve been competing with each other since eighth grade.

“Derik says no, but I’ve always been after Derik since our eighth grade year when he was valedictorian of our preparatory class,” Whatley said. “That was my goal. I knew it had to be close.”

Kidd said he wasn’t really interested in competition.

“I guess it put an unnecessary strain on me,” he said.

“Derik is just smart all together,” Whatley said.

Whatley is the daughter of Barbara and Robert Whatley of Atmore, and Kidd is the son of Chandra and Derik Kidd of Atmore.