For the fifth year in a row, The Commercial is highlighting Jefferson County’s valedictorians and their classmates with a series of stories and photo pages at graduation time. This is the first of eight entries in our Class of 2025 series.
On the bus to a road game, the Watson Chapel girls basketball team keeps a laser-focus on that night’s opponent.
Trinity Mitchner carried the same focus with her team for four years — that is, if she wasn’t tackling that night’s homework.
“On the bus rides, it’s always quiet,” she said. “Everybody’s locked in and focused on the game, but the leadership we were under, we were always prepared for the game days ahead. I would say focusing on my coursework sometimes before the game helped me to relax. It helped me not get so stressed about the games.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Mitchner’s commitment to excellence in the classroom, which translated to her performance on the court, was crucial to her earning another title — valedictorian. The homecoming queen will lead her fellow Wildcats into the Pine Bluff Convention Center arena for their graduation at 7 p.m. Friday. (Visitors are encouraged to arrive early to go through security screening.)
“It’s a proud-mom moment to see my daughter work so hard to see where she’s at today, to see how much she’s grown over the years and how much she’s focused and dedicated and persistent she is,” mother Tonya Mitchner said. “It’s like a parent’s dream to see your daughter succeed in all areas of life and see so many accomplishments.”
The Mitchners learned of one of those accomplishments last month, when Trinity was named to the National Society of High School Scholars.
Running through Trinity Mitchner’s mind as the big night draws near are all the memories over the past year. The class of 2025 is the next-to-last that will graduate from the current WCHS campus, as a new, two-story facility is under construction.
“The school has remained the same because it’s not much you can do to change a building, but the culture, I feel like, has improved over the years,” Mitchner said. “I think that comes from the students being more involved.”
This may have been Mitchner’s best school year at Watson Chapel, she surmised, thanks in large part to first-year Principal Jeffrey Neal.
“He allowed us to do a lot of stuff we had never seen before at Watson Chapel,” she said. “That’s why my senior year was a very fun year. He kept us involved and excited about coming to school. I didn’t see a lot of people getting in trouble as much.”
Mitchner helped Watson Chapel go undefeated in Conference 4A-8 play this past season. The guard-slash-forward — or point forward as she calls it — lettered all four seasons for the Black and Gold.
Under first-year Coach Lenell Brown, Mitchner said, the Lady Wildcats became more comfortable with basketball, helping them to win the conference title. Under Brown’s predecessor, Leslie Henderson, Mitchner learned the importance of being tough, showing up and working hard without excuses.
Those traits translated to her class work, helping her attain an estimated 4.2 grade-point average.
“Not letting life get into what I had going on at school and making sure that I put that first and got that done, not even letting basketball come in between and making sure (I’m) doing homework on bus rides from games. It was always a priority,” Mitchner said.
Her father Terrence, operations director for Pine Bluff Parks and Recreation, has played a big role in developing Trinity’s game.
“When he became over that, he let me get in the gym some nights after work or just whenever me and my friends wanted to do a pickup game or 1-on-1,” she said. “He was just open to letting us play.”
As her mother said, no one would have noticed Mitchner had to overcome a bit of adversity to win on and off the court. Trinity discovered while in pre-kindergarten she is blind in her right eye.
“No one would ever know, and she never allowed that to be a crutch,” Tonya Mitchner said. “She never let anyone know, and she continued to persevere without even letting that hinder her. … And then for her to still play basketball, go out on the court and let nothing of that nature hinder her from living her life and do what she needs to do, that’s inspirational to me.”
Trinity Mitchner also competed in cross country and track. She was a state qualifier in track each year she ran, but did not compete this spring to focus on school and work at Tropical Smoothie Café. (Giselle Arreola, the 2023 Watson Chapel valedictorian, also worked there.)
Another gold mine, figuratively speaking, awaits the younger Mitchner. She will attend Xavier University of Louisiana (where athletic teams are known as the Gold Rush and Gold Nuggets) and major in biology and pre-medicine so she can become an emergency medicine doctor.
“I just love the rush that emergency medicine can give me,” she said. “I love everything about medicine. I just feel like, in emergency medicine, you’re just helping people that have no other choice. You have to save lives every day, and I feel like that’s a very good-feeling job.”
