Washington resident Treshon Smith, 15, has big plans for his future.

The Washington High School freshman is driven with his schoolwork and hopes to study architecture at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill one day.

Not only that, he’s polite and respectful, someone younger students can look up to, according to Mal Collins, area director of the Boys & Girls Club of Beaufort County.

That’s why Collins nominated him, along with a few other club attendees, to compete for the Boy & Girls Clubs of the Coastal Plain Youth of the Year award.

According to Smith, each person had to write a two-to-three-minute speech, recite it to a panel of judges and then answer any follow-up questions.

“Mostly they looked at your character and how you were a leader for other people in your community,” Smith said. “It was a good experience and I liked it.”

Smith was recognized as one of the finalists for the award at a dinner Friday night in Greenville, and he was the only representative there from Washington.

Joi Turnage, who is from the Dr. Ledyard E. Ross Unit in Ayden, took home the award, and along with receiving $1,000 in scholarship money, she will go on to compete at the state level. The rest of the finalists received plaques and new Beats headphones.

For Smith, receiving such recognition meant a lot, especially considering that he attributes much of his success to the Boys & Girls Club. He has been involved with the club for more than five years now.

“I think it is a positive place,” he said, adding that it keeps kids away from drugs or gang activity. “The people who are on the streets aren’t safe. … Once they (kids) get influenced, they’re going to do it, as well.

“That’s mostly why I’ve been coming to the Boys & Girls Club,” Smith said.

He said he tries to help kids with their homework at the club as much as he can, as well as lend a hand to help the leaders.

“Treshon is an extremely respectful young man. He is the true definition of a role model for the young members at the Club,” Collins wrote in an email. “He can always be counted on to help in whatever capacity is needed around the Club. I am so thankful and proud of the young man that he has become and will continue to be throughout his endeavors and pursuits in life.”

While he will continue to strive to be successful in the future, Smith said he also wants other students to know the role of hard work in achieving one’s dreams.

“I would say never give up and keep grinding,” he said. “If it’s something they want, then they have work hard to get it.”

That’s been his philosophy over the years, and it’s one that he feels has gotten and will get him far.

“I would love to go to college. … I want to go because so far my parents haven’t graduated from college yet,” Smith said. “I want to be one of those Smiths who attended college.”