Jessica Yukich of Crown Point is a student ambassador

Jessica Yukich is doing just swimmingly as a sixth-grader at Taft Middle School in Crown Point.

Yukich, 12, daughter of Carey and John Yukich, is an honor student, a key member of the Crown Point Swim Club Bulldogs, and last summer, just before finishing at Lake Elementary School and starting at Taft, she participated in the People to People Student Ambassador Program, an educational travel experience founded by late president Dwight D. Eisenhower.

She spent one week each in England and in France.

"It was fun. We went to see various sites in Paris, such as the Eiffel Tower, and also went to see the ‘Mona Lisa.' In England, we went on the London Eye, a huge Ferris wheel, and also saw Big Ben," Yukich says. "My favorite thing we did was in London, where we went to see ‘Wicked.' It was cool because the center of London is all lights - it's all lit up and it's really pretty."

Yukich says the trip has proved valuable in her Social Studies class this year.

"Now, when we're learning about certain subjects, I can say I've been there, and that's cool. I have seen, in real life, some of the paintings shown in my Social Studies book. It definitely helped me mature and grow as a person," she says of her time abroad.

Yukich is in the Gold Group of the swim club, and participated in freestyle and butterfly events in a recent tournament. She finished among the top eight swimmers in the state in competitions in 2009 and hopes to excel even more this year.

She says, "I love swimming. It's a lot of fun and you make a lot of friends doing it."

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