Daughter and mother are valedictorians of the same school 27 years apart

BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — The saying goes, “like mother, like daughter.”

Brynn Garner is following in her mom’s footsteps as the valedictorian at her school, and it doesn’t end there.

Brynn is the North Brunswick High School Valedictorian. She graduated with a 5.0 GPA and will be a future Tar Heel.

“I’m really excited because I’ve always strived to be the best and this was kind of like the deciding factor, like yes, the numbers say that I’m the best,” Brynn Garner said.

It’s a truly amazing feat that is very familiar to her mother, Andrea Garner.

“She’s my only child and I was valedictorian and so she is super excited to be valedictorian at the same high school. I graduated in 1990,” Andrea Garner said.

That’s 27 years ago that Andrea graduated top of her class and would go on to UNC. Andrea believes she may have influenced Brynn’s choice of which college to choose.

“It wasn’t until she was probably about eight or nine-years-old that she decided that was where she was going to go and she’s known ever since,” Andrea said.

Brynn worked hard her whole life and sees her mom as a huge role model.

“My mom has been a very significant part of getting here. She inspired me. She always did her best and I always wanted to do my best because I always wanted to make her proud and make everyone else proud,” Brynn said.

Andrea knows how hard her daughter works and says she couldn’t be prouder.

“I could not be prouder of this child and she’s a young lady now but I think that’s the thing. She’s been so motivated. She wants to do things, she wants to help,” Andrea said.

Brynn says she wanted to push herself to the limit and is happy to see the results from her hard work.

“I put all the pressure on myself. She’s been saying this whole year ‘its okay if you’re not number one, I’m not going to be upset’. But it’d upset me if I wasn’t going to be number one. So, I put all the pressure on myself and I told myself, going into freshman year, ‘I was going to be number one by the end. I didn’t care what I had to do.’ And so I did everything that I needed. I did everything that I had to do,” Brynn said.

As similar as their paths may be, Brynn says she will not become a school teacher, like her mother.

She wants to become an environmentalist and teach the public.