Nicole Graham is fascinated by people, especially historical figures.

NICOLE GRAHAM

"To me, reading history is like reading People magazine," Graham said. "It doesn't make any difference that they lived a long time ago. They were celebrities in their own time, just like today, and everybody around them wanted to know their political leanings, who their lovers were, what they wore, just like celebrities today."

Graham is an honors student and a Silver Knight nominee in the category of Social Science at Palmetto Senior High School. She said her love of history developed from a love of reading.
"Reading has always been important in my family, so I started reading books about history early on and I've always loved it," she explains.

She also enjoys political science and law and is a member of Palmetto's nationally recognized debate team and mock trial club.

"When we debate a topic, we need to know a lot about current events, but we also need to know a lot about the past, so all my interests really combine in these activities," said Graham, who recently traveled with the team to debate tournaments at Emory University, Stanford University, Harvard University, and other competitions all across the country.

"I love doing it," she said. "But I also wanted to do something that would have an impact and I recently read that 27 million people in this country can't read. That shocked me, because reading is a skill that's essential for survival."

So Graham founded and heads up "Reach for Reading," a literacy program for elementary school children. She collects and donates children's books to organizations like Colonial Drive Elementary School (where she's also a reading tutor), People of the Book (an organization that donates books to underprivileged kids), and America Reads. So far this year she has been able to donate more than 550 books.

"Some of these kids have no books at home and sometimes not even at school, so they don't have any way to get interested in reading," Graham said. "So when you give a child a book and help them learn to read it all the way through all by themselves it's a very satisfying experience and you know you've made a difference in their lives."

Graham also wanted to help her old alma mater, Palmetto Elementary School, but because they had plenty of books, she started a student newspaper there.

"I worked with a group of kids from the third grade through the fifth grade to help them start their own newspaper," she said. "They're the writers and the editors. I just help them get organized. It's been great."

Graham also is concerned with gun safety, and is currently involved in circulating a petition that would require gun manufacturers to install safety mechanisms on their triggers.

"Everybody is concerned about our constitutional right to bear arms, but when a 5-year-old is accidentally killed by a gun because they were playing with it, that's something that could have been prevented by a safety lock and it wouldn't interfere with anybody's right to bear arms," she explained.
With all those activities, how does Graham find time for school and homework?

"I'm one of those people that, if I'm not busy every minute, I probably wouldn't do anything -- so I stay busy."