Anngelique Haggerty will graduate from Lawrence High School today. Haggerty, who loves to read, was a student library assistant and an excellent physics student at LHS. She will receive her diploma today despite a number of setbacks beginning with her mother’s death when she was 15. She attended high schools in Texas and Topeka before ending up in Lawrence. Haggerty also kept up with her schoolwork for nearly three months while she was in jail for missing a court appearance.

Anngelique Haggerty loves physics. She’s earned an academic scholarship at Kansas University, and will join the freshman class there next fall.

But hers hasn’t been an easy journey. In fact, she wasn’t sure she would be able to receive her diploma today with the Lawrence High School Class of 2009.

“My mom passed when I was 15,” the graduating senior said.

So she moved to Houston to live with an aunt. When that didn’t work out, she returned to Topeka. Anngelique attended three high schools in Topeka and was in Texas for her junior year.

“My high school was kind of a blur,” she said. “I didn’t really care for high school.”

But last fall, she enrolled at Lawrence High for her senior year. Her grades never suffered.

“They’re good. I got A’s and B’s,” she said.

Anngelique even impressed her physics teacher, Andrew Bricker, with her diligence and intensity for schoolwork.

“She told me about her background and as the year progressed, she was always just out there at the front, always doing what she’s supposed to and working on the assignments,” Bricker said.

Because of her mother’s death, Anngelique was in foster care and lived in a group home in Lawrence. She thought her life had turned around.

That is until mid-January, when police arrived at LHS and arrested her for an outstanding warrant. She had missed a court appearance.

Earlier, she’d been charged in Shawnee County District Court after a misstep she made with a former boyfriend after she returned from Texas.

“He asked me to give him a ride,” Anngelique said. “I took him to his so-called grandma’s house, but it wasn’t. It was his cousin’s, and he broke into the house while his cousin was being buried. All those charges fell back on me.”

She was arrested because she hadn’t shown up to court.

“My case worker didn’t know,” she said. “No one knew I had court. I had to sit in jail for almost three months.”

Still, education came first.

“(My grades) actually stayed pretty well when I was in jail because I did all my work in there,” Anngelique said.

Bricker said he knew Anngelique was having to overcome some challenges, but her work ethic didn’t change.

“That made it all the more impressive at first because I don’t see a lot of students really engage as much as she did with the material,” he said. “She just kept exceeding expectations at every turn and was at the top of the class the whole time she was here.”

LHS counselor Lori Stussie and John Swift, a teacher at the Juvenile Detention Center in Topeka, coordinated Anngelique’s assignments.

“He and I kept in close contact,” Stussie said.

Swift, who lives in Lawrence, and LHS Assistant Principal Beryl New, who lives in Topeka, drove Anngelique’s assignments back and forth.

“She was worth it,” Stussie said.

Anngelique, who was released from custody about a month ago, hopes to become a nurse after she graduates from Kansas University, where she wants to pursue a double major.

“I also want to major in DNA forensics,” she said. “I know it’ll take a while, but I’m going to go for it.”

Bricker thinks college is just the thing for Anngelique.

“I think she’s going to do great beyond here,” he said. “I think she’ll be a stellar student and probably excel in whatever career she chooses.”

Anngelique credits staff at Lawrence High for helping her make it through high school.

“It’s a good atmosphere. The people are nice. The teachers are friendly,” she said. “It makes it worthwhile because everyone’s just nice.”

Anngelique now lives with her grandmother in Topeka. She’s thankful she’ll be donning a cap and gown today.

“I (didn’t) think I would have graduated on time,” she said. “It was hard, but I still stuck it out for school.”