My name is Johnathan Thompson. I'm 20 years old and from Mississippi. I recently graduated from Holmes Community College in Ridgeland with high honors and an overall 3.8 GPA. Over the last three semesters, I maintained a 4.0 while pursuing civil engineering. I believe in discipline, faith, and community, and that belief shaped everything I did at Holmes. I served as Vice President of our Phi Theta Kappa chapter, a nationally recognized honor society, I joined as a freshman. Our chapter earned three regional awards and two national ones. I helped lead project planning, coordination with faculty, and campus-wide initiatives that brought students together. I received the Dean’s Scholarship, the All-Mississippi Academic Award (one of only two on my campus), the Mathematics Award, and was inducted into the Student Hall of Fame. Outside school, I’ve always cared about people. I’m passionate about building strong, thoughtful spaces, something I learned from my father, an architect and businessman I have shadowed since I was twelve. Through him, I've gained firsthand knowledge of leadership and business. Now, I’m heading to an HBCU to finish my degree at a school that means a lot to me because my father went there too. I’m stepping forward with gratitude and determination, ready to build more than structures, I want to build opportunity and bring something real back to my community.