Senior Spotlight: Jackson Wellons

When he got Spot 188, Jackson Wellons continued a Northern High tradition. He knew he would get a chance to turn his parking space into his own personal canvas and paint a scene to show his personality. Jackson pored through the internet for ideas and stumbled onto a wave. Right away, he knew that would work. He did love the beach. 

But then, it hit him. Show the metaphor of it all. The end of one chapter of life. The beginning of another. Just like how the sun rises and sets every day. Sunset, that’s it, Jackson told himself. Paint a sunset.  

He sketched a drawing at the family’s kitchen table, took seven gallons of paint to Northern High’s parking lot, and along with his parents and his younger sister helping, he turned Spot 188 into a bright yellow sun with rays of red and dark orange over a wave of light blue. 

Carolina blue. That did seem to fit.  

Jackson will graduate Friday from Northern High. Two months later, he will begin his freshmen year at UNC-Chapel Hill. He plans to major political science and public policy and go after what his parents have always told him he needs to be since he was a first grader. They’d be going somewhere in their car or sitting at the kitchen table, and Jackson would press his parents on what they just said. 

“Jackson,” his mom told him, “I think you’d make a great lawyer.” 

Moms do know best. A lawyer is what Jackson wants to be. 

 

‘That Was Really Cool’ 

Jackson is an Eagle Scout with Troop 103. His project: supervising at least 15 of his fellow Boy Scouts to build 10 benches at Greensboro’s Spencer Love Tennis Center at Jaycee Park.  

He also was the senior design editor for The Nighthawk Post. Since his junior year, he has helped design at least 10 issues and tapped into what he had learned about software design programs in classes at Northern High. Jackson got involved with The Nighthawk Post after the pandemic because he wanted the publication to become a print newspaper and create what he calls a “classic high school vibe.” 

“I think back to movies like ‘The Breakfast Club,’ and it feels like classic high school,” Jackson says. “And after our first year back from COVID, everything felt very sterile with wearing masks and everything. We were in our own little bubble. But the newspaper felt like we were bringing some of that vibe back, and that was really cool.” 

Jackson has long been a leader. 

In November 2022, Jackson organized a trip to Wilmington for Troop 103. He and other Boy Scouts camped out at Carolina Beach State Park, visited the U.S. Coast Guard Station in Wilmington and piloted a Coast Guard boat going 40 mph off the North Carolina coast.   

In the fall of 2023, he founded the Northern’s Mock Trial and Debate Club. Every Monday, he and other members would meet in Maeve O’Dea’s social studies class and talk about real-world problems in a critical, logical way. They dug into the thorny situations of finding solutions that were ethical and moral, not just right. 

Then there was Northern’s Model UN Team. Jackson was a member. In The Nighthawk Post, he wrote about the team’s trip to UNC-Chapel Hill for MUNCH, or Model United Nations at Chapel Hill. During the three-day conference, Wellons and other members from Northern High discussed problems facing the world – and their generation. 

On page 3 of The Nighthawk Post, Jackson wrote a 1,154-word piece. He gave props to the conference and quoted the team’s faculty advisor, Andrew McDowell, Jackson’s history teacher. McDowell told his students what he wanted them to remember. 

“International relations are hugely important, now more than ever,” McDowell told his team. “And more importantly I think it is critical for people to know how to debate and know how to…disagree without malice.” 

Jackson saw the importance of that firsthand in an Alamance County courtroom. He was sitting right beside his mom. 

 

Finding Purpose, Finding Passion  

Jackson’s mom, Lynette Wellons, is the assistant director of services for the Alamance County Department of Social Services. On most Wednesdays, she goes to court to support her fellow social workers and their attorney. Sometimes, Jackson would text his mom questions during her courtroom days. He remembers her response. 

“Jackson, I can’t talk right now,” she’d write. “I’m in court.” 

As Jackson got more interested in becoming a lawyer, he asked his mom if he could shadow her. He did the summer before his senior year. Jackson met judges and attorneys, sat in a courtroom and listened to attorneys present cases about child abuse and neglect. The cases Jackson heard about children were heart-wrenching. He’d then look over, see those very children sitting in court and ask himself, “What can I do about this?” 

As he began to reflect on what he saw and heard, Jackson thought about the Scout Law and Troop 103. He also thought about what he had learned from his teachers at Northern High. That’s what made his setting sun on Spot 188 — his spot — more poignant. 

He was leaving Northern High. But he had learned much. “The teachers at Northern inspired me more than anything to care about doing my best and care about other people and care about the world,” Jackson says.

“The teachers at Northern inspired me more than anything to care about doing my best and care about other people and care about the world,” Jackson says. “There is this quote that Mr. McDowell, my history teacher, showed us.  

“The quote talked about how if you don’t stand up for oppressed or under-represented populations, there will be no one left to stand up for you and that stuck with me and really opened my eyes,” Jackson says. “You have to be able to care for other people and use that ability to advocate and stand up for others when you have the opportunity.” 

And that is exactly what Jackson intends to do.