In her four years at Whitney Young, Sophia Byrd has made a name for herself as one of the most talented artists in the senior class. You may know her from her song “I See the Light” on the Chiraq soundtrack or recognize her as one of the extremely talented dancers on Whitney Young’s Guys and Dolls dance team. Growing up in Beverly, Sophia was originally in the Beverly chapter of the Chicago Children’s Choir, where she began her illustrious career as an artist. She is now a member of the Chicago Children’s Choir’s ‘Voices of Chicago’ and is a member of their 2016-2017 Singer’s Council. In addition to singing and dancing, Sophia is also a songwriter. Much of her inspiration comes from poetry, and she says that “I find a lot of my inspiration from the imagery laced into poetry, so most Sundays, I start my days by searching things like ‘poems about spring’ or ‘poems about hands’.”  Sophia has loved her time as a Whitney Young Dolphin; she says that her favorite part of being a Dolphin is the collective competitive spirit of the student body-  she says that“Whether it be at a game, or simply talking about our rivalry with another school, Dolphins cast aside their differences in order to come together through our competitive spirit.” Overall, Sophia is a fantastic student and human being. She will continue to bleed orange and blue next year at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she will be studying vocal jazz performance.