This is the fourth entry in our Class of 2025 series.
Victoria Trujillo repeated the same academic goal in her mind from the time she was in middle school, about the same time Trinity Hagood set the same goal for herself.
“Ever since, like middle school, I told myself, ‘I could be top of my class, top of my class,'” Trujillo said.
Hagood had always received academic awards throughout her school days, but the idea of being valedictorian didn’t come to her until family members told her about it.
“They said they could really see (me) in this position, but I couldn’t see myself in this position,” she said. “There’s a million smarter people than me, so I didn’t see that happening. When I got up to high school freshman year, I said if I want to do this for myself, I’ve got to put in the hard work, and then I can achieve it.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
For Trujillo, overcoming the naysayers was another challenge.
“Honestly, it did bring me down a couple of times when people were like, ‘It’s just high school. Is it going to matter later in life?'” Trujillo said. “I just see it more like miniature goals. That was one goal I wanted to achieve in life. I achieved that goal, so I can achieve another goal. I made myself proud since I set it since middle school, and it’s a goal and you can keep achieving goals.”
This goal is something Trujillo and Hagood will be remembered for in White Hall High School lore. The two are co-valedictorians for the school’s 2025 graduation, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Friday at Bulldog Stadium.
Not only is Hagood one of two valedictorians in the same class; she’s one of two girls from the same church with the same first name who won the honor. She and Watson Chapel’s Trinity Mitchner attend New Life Church in Pine Bluff.
“I really like it, how it’s good representation for the faith, because the two commonalities in that are we are both really faith-based, and I think that kind of really helps during the whole school year,” Hagood said of her and Mitchner, who graduated last Friday. “We have something to fall back on, like when we get stressed and stuff like that.”
Hagood had every right to believe she could be at the head of the class. She never made a B on a report card … ever. But making all A’s never came easy to her, she and her mom said.
“Me talking to her, her father talking to her, telling her ‘You put the work in, then you get those results,'” Latrese Hagood said. “You get what you put in.”
Trinity Hagood and Trujillo share not only an academic title but interests in band music with hopes of going into the medical field.
Trujillo will attend the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, on a music scholarship and will play in the school’s marching band as a saxophonist. She wants to double-major in music performance and food nutrition, with plans to earn certifications as an interpreter and tax preparer.
She first saw Arkansas’ band perform in person during the 2024 football season opener against the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. The bands from both schools joined together for a halftime performance.
“I was trying to sit by the U of A band, but I accidentally sat by the UAPB band,” Trujillo said. “I’m not complaining. They’re both great.”
Trujillo wanted to join the choir in middle school, but her father said “no” to it and got her into band, where she was debating whether to play the clarinet or flute. Her father told her to give the saxophone a try.
“I started off the saxophone not as a natural talent, but I was good for where I was at,” Trujillo said. “Through the years, I kept up with it. In high school I got better and people were telling me, ‘Oh, you sound great!’ I was playing at a wedding one time and that was really kicking me up to, ‘Oh, yeah, I really want to do this.'”
Hagood was a clarinetist since sixth grade and was an all-region performer. She also captained White Hall’s flag line for two years.
Hagood plans to attend the University of Central Arkansas to major in exercise science with an occupational therapy track, with hopes of pursuing a doctoral degree in occupational therapy. Her future plans include working in an acute-care hospital.
Even with so much passion for music, the question of what to do after college would stump Trujillo when she was younger. She had no interest in becoming a music educator or band director.
But as a member of White Hall’s Family, Career and Community Leaders of America, Trujillo would constantly win first-place awards in food nutrition competitions. This year, she earned a trip to the FCCLA national conference in Orlando, Fla.
“You pick an athlete (and) you make a meal plan for them on either how to lose weight or gain weight,” Trujillo said, describing her task. “I just excel at all that information. I’ve been told the amount of information I know about it is really good, so why not use that later in life and just make money at it?”
The interpreter license would allow Trujillo to use her bilingual skills in a hospital setting. “The job would be better, the pay would be better and on the side — I don’t want to teach music in school — but I could offer private lessons,” she reasoned.
Trujillo, whose parents are both from Mexico, grew up in White Hall but said she didn’t speak English fluently until she was in third grade.
“When I got to middle school, there were words I still didn’t know. It was embarrassing when I didn’t know what the word ‘shallow’ meant. I don’t want to say it was proving people wrong. It was more like proving to myself, ‘Oh, yeah, I can do this. It doesn’t matter what other people have to say.'”
Hagood stayed busy in school through Gifted and Talented Education, Mu Alpha Theta, Beta Club, National Honor Society and being a student ambassador.
“The thing, I think, that helps with her the most with the academic part outside of school is that she’s an avid reader,” Latrese Hagood said. “She has bookcases (four rows high) full of books across her desk at home, so she reads.”
Reading at an early age came naturally. “When a lot of kids would be taking a nap in kindergarten, I’d be up reading,” Trinity Hagood said.
She’s also an avid TikToker.
“She’s always been an easy kid to parent,” Latrese Hagood said. “I couldn’t ask for a better child for me.”
Nathan Sullivan said he never had two people tie for the valedictorian honor in six years as White Hall’s principal, but he’s had co-salutatorians on one or more occasions.
“I think if you ask both of (the valedictorians), they would say it was a friendly rivalry,” he said. “I think as they got older in their career, they both felt like they were going to end up in this spot. So, the work both of those young ladies put in not only inside the classroom but outside the classroom is affable and beyond reproach, the amount time they spent to be on top for both of those young ladies.”
Upcoming graduations
Friday
10 a.m.: Southeast Arkansas College, Pine Bluff Convention Center
6 p.m.: Pine Bluff High School, UAPB H.O. Clemmons Arena
7:30 p.m.: White Hall High School, Bulldog Stadium
