Just About Perfect in Palmdale : Phelps Bound for Cornell After Excelling in 3 Sports and Serving as Student President and Valedictorian

So girls just want to have fun, huh?

Sarah Phelps knows better, but there are times when a girl has to let her hair down, as she playfully demonstrated last week at Palmdale High’s graduation exercises.

Anyone expecting the class valedictorian to deliver a by-the-book farewell address was in for a surprise.

During her short speech, Phelps broke tradition by poking fun at everything from school rules to her classmates, who punctuated the stand-up routine with whoops of approval. After finishing, the 5-foot-11 Phelps pulled off her gown to reveal a gold-sequined mini dress, thus supplying her own exclamation point to the revelry.

“That was very Sarah,” said Sala Simonds, Palmdale assistant principal. “It was so typical of her. Everybody just loved it.”

Phelps’ graduation-day antics provided the class of ’95 with an indelible image, but it wasn’t the total picture. Not by a long shot.

Unseen by most at the ceremony was Phelps’ balancing act in the past year, a sleep-depriving performance that allowed her to maintain a 4.0 grade-point average, serve as student body president, and help organize virtually all of the school’s social events.

Oh, yes, and Phelps, 18, wasn’t too shabby an athlete.

Although she was constantly being pulled in various directions by her demanding schedule, Phelps excelled in volleyball, soccer and track and was selected Palmdale’s senior female athlete of the year.

She never came off the court for the volleyball team, earning All-Golden League honors at middle blocker for the second season in a row. She gave up basketball to play soccer for the first time and was an all-league honorable-mention goalkeeper. In track, she successfully defended her league high-jump title and posted the area’s second-best mark, 5 feet 4 inches. She reached the Southern Section Division I championships, where she took seventh.

“She put everything she had into everything,” said Steve Wilson, girls’ track coach at Palmdale.

In four years, Phelps earned nine varsity letters--four in track, three in volleyball and one each in basketball and soccer.

Phelps expects to continue to pursue a wide range of interests at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., where she begins classes in the fall. She plans to major in political science and communication, with a possible minor in French, and compete on the volleyball and track teams.

She has her sights set on working for the government in a French-speaking U.S. Embassy, or for the International Olympic Committee. “I really enjoy working with people and organizing,” Phelps said.

Politics is another career possibility. One of Phelps’ most-memorable experiences at Palmdale was being chosen last year as the school’s California Girls State representative, which took her to Sacramento where she was elected controller in a mock state election.

“She’s a special girl,” Simonds said. “I’ve known her for four years and she’s dynamite. She just grows on you. It’s always delightful to have her around. She’s brilliant--she can do anything--and she always has a smile.”

Well, almost always.

Wilson marveled at Phelps for having “an iron in every oven.”

But in the process, she nearly got burned out.

“You get to that point where you think you can’t do it,” Phelps said, describing the difficulty of juggling her demanding workload. “I’ve been there before. But you get through it. You keep pushing and work through it.”

Garry Phelps knows the price his daughter paid striving for perfection.

As proud as he was of Sarah’s accomplishments, Garry worried that she was sacrificing her health by staying up late to meet her commitments. But Sarah resisted any fatherly advice to curtail her hectic schedule, even in the most-stressful situations.

“She can be very emotional,” said Garry, coach of the boys’ basketball team and the athletic coordinator at Palmdale.

“Sometimes when she was really pushing herself, she would break down and start crying. I’d sit her down and tell her to look at her priorities, [that] maybe she should cut back on some of her activities. She would just say, ‘No, I can’t do that, Dad. I have to do it all.’ ”

Sarah says her parents’ support was invaluable. Her mother, Meta, is the coordinator of a county-funded study program at Palmdale High for pregnant minors. Meta regularly made lunch for the family--Sarah’s brother Tim will be a Palmdale sophomore in the fall--in her classroom.

“They’d help me finish projects at 2 in the morning,” Sarah said. “But it never seemed like a big challenge. I always did that kind of stuff. I’m not happy unless I’m stressed out, I guess.”

Along the way, personal sacrifices were made. Phelps said she frequently functioned on only a few hours’ sleep. Until recently, she did not have a boyfriend. And she acknowledged that her athletic performances probably suffered because of the time spent planning events such as homecoming.

Largely because of Phelps’ efforts, Palmdale students obtained use of the Metrolink for transportation to and from their prom at the Biltmore Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles--a first for the school, which previously had used buses.

Although Phelps has no regrets, one of her biggest disappointments was not having a better track season. Her high jumps at big meets such as the Arcadia Invitational and the Southern Section finals fell short of her goals.

“It was really hard to focus on track because the season was right in the middle of so many other distractions,” she said. “It was disappointing, but I have to live with it. I’m satisfied with the choices I made.”

Wilson said Phelps could develop into a 5-10 high jumper in college if she devotes more time to her specialty. “I would have liked to see her go higher and win CIF,” Wilson said, “but I wouldn’t like to see her do it at the expense of all the other things she’s doing.”

Phelps expanded her athletic resume this year by taking up soccer, a sport in which two of her close friends--fellow seniors Angelica Plascencia and Kristi Hanson--are all-league performers. Phelps struck a colorful figure in goal by wearing a hot-pink and neon-green jacket splashed with silver sequins.

However, her fashion statement on the field wasn’t just for show, as she proved by helping the Falcons win the Golden League title.

After soccer season, Phelps and Plascencia, a distance runner, persuaded Hanson to come out for track. Several weeks later, they celebrated another league title.

“Sarah has a lot of fun with life, especially with the other two amigos,” Wilson said. “They’re always doing something to each other.”

Although all three are honor students, Phelps, Plascencia and Hanson can act as goofy as any teen-agers. After the prom as juniors, Phelps accidentally gave Plascencia a black eye during a playful wrestling match. And last weekend, Hanson cut her nose during a water fight at a graduation party at Phelps’ house.

Plascencia was one of three class valedictorians with a 4.0-grade-point average and will attend Pepperdine. Hanson received all A’s except for one B and has been accepted to the Air Force Academy.

“We do teen-age things,” Phelps said. “It’s not like we’re cooped up with our books all the time.”

Phelps nurtures her more-creative side with tap, jazz and ballet dancing, activities she has participated in since the age of 3.

“It’s my stress relief,” she said.

Phelps is relaxing this summer until she reports to Cornell in late August. “I’m ready to leave, let’s put it that way,” she said.