Thursday, August 30, 2018
Many students go on school-sponsored field trips or even out-of-state expeditions with their classmates. For Jhanae Harris, exploring different parts of the country throughout her high school career not only helped her find the college she is attending this fall but helped her become a seasoned performer as well.
“I’m still in my music group that I was in in high school,” she said. “I just recorded a bunch of songs before I left.” Her counterparts in the music group, Trilogy, will complete their sections of the music while Harris settles into her first year at Jackson State University in Mississippi.
Harris is a graduate of La Follette High School in Madison. Her musical success with Trilogy and performance success through the NAACP’s Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO), are matched with her academic success. In her last two years of high school, Harris earned gold medals in local ACT-SO competitions and traveled to Los Angeles and San Antonio for the national competitions. “Getting all of that feedback and those opportunities make me want to better myself,” Harris said. She also maintained honor roll status and secured myriad scholarships for college.
Her participation in the DELTA GEMS, a sponsored chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, along with La Follette’s Black Student Union (BSU) helped prepare Harris for her future as well. “I was in it for all four of my years and had a chance to visit historically black colleges in different states,” she said. She credits the DELTAs for the many conversations, activities, and opportunities to learn about and discover her own capabilities. Harris is thankful for the support from the DELTAs along with her high school counselors for helping her earn college scholarships.
Just because college classes are starting does not mean that her travels are ending. In two weeks, Harris will travel to Detroit to join the rest of her music group along with Dr. Jasmine Zapata, a pediatrician and founder of the Beyond Beautiful International Girls Empowerment Movement. Harris will perform and participate in the tour which was created to support the social, emotional, and mental health of young people, and, according to Harris, “ for girls to feel beautiful about themselves.”
Harris is attending Jackson State University, majoring in marketing, with the goal of promoting her own music, and ultimately, starting her own label.