As a Southside High School student, Viktoria King was a model student — A-B Honor Roll, student-athlete, active in a number of clubs — but an incident, which occurred during her sophomore year, put her academic career at risk. However, through determination and discipline, King has risen above the odds and on the path to success.

King said, in 2008, she was suspended from school for an extended period of time after defending herself in a fight, which broke out at the high school the last day of the fall semester. She was not only suspended from Beaufort County Schools, but also blocked from attending any public school. From December to May of that year, she was ineligible to return to school.

“At that time, I was broken,” King said. “I was just out with nowhere to go.”

With the help of her family, King enrolled in a home-schooling agency called Keystone National High School. Through the home-school program, the high school sent King booklets with lesson plans, assignments and tests. King would submit her materials by mail and receive her grades the same way.

“I basically had to teach myself Civics, English III and Geometry when I was in that program,” King said.

In August of 2008, however, King was eligible to return to Southside High School as a junior, she said. Through hard work and focus, King was able to graduate on time and walk with her graduating class.

After graduation, King attended North Carolina Central University, majoring in Criminal Justice with a concentration in Homeland Security, she said. During college, she accumulated 120 hours of community service. King volunteered her time at a mental health agency, gave blood, donated her clothing to an organization that conducted clothing drives for those in need and participated in the America Reads program, in which she visited primary schools and helped tutor young students.

King said she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice with a cumulative grade-point average of 3.016 on May 10 of this year. She was also accepted into the United States Air Force as an officer and is currently awaiting orders.

King credits her mother, grandmother, aunt and uncle, Wayland T. Whitley, a father figure and her church family, God’s Way in Kinston, for her success and the strength to keep going through the odds she has faced.

“I feel like this experience helped me build up resiliency,” King said. “I know that I would face trials in the world and I have to triumph and overcome them regardless of what may come in my way. I also found the courage to stand up for what’s right.”

King said she plans to study law while in the Air Force and become an officer in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. She also wants to focus on her Homeland Security degree and work closely with Washington, D.C. regarding cyber terrorism or with the FEMA courts as a measure of disaster response and preparedness.