PHOENIX — When you turn 16, getting a driver’s license is the typical milestone, but how about getting a pilot's license just two years later?
That’s the plan for an extraordinary Valley high school senior who’s taking to the skies, and about to graduate with honors.
“I am South Mountain’s cheer captain, I’m a track runner, I’m in JROTC (and) the command captain,” 18-year-old Yanees Muhammad said. “I’m also in the flight program.”
The senior at The Academies at South Mountain is definitely a standout student.
“If you tried to tell me this when I was in middle school, I would be flabbergasted by it,” Muhammad said. “I would just be so shocked because I did not expect any of this actually.”
Muhammad will soon earn her pilot’s license, but it didn’t come without some obstacles. When she arrived at the Academies at South Mountain as a junior, she was behind on credits, and they thought she wouldn’t be able to graduate on time.
“My mom was like, there’s a flight program here, you should try it out and the flight program starts sophomore year, and I was already a junior, so they didn’t know if I would be able to do it,” Muhammad said.
But through dedication and tutoring, she not only caught up, Muhammad is now on the honor roll. And she completed the pilot program in two years when it typically takes students three.
“I did it and now I’m a pilot and I fly planes and it’s so exciting,” Muhammad said. “It’s really hard, but it’s so rewarding, because when you’re up there in the sky it’s just like, everything goes away and you’re just in the sky. It’s amazing.”
What makes this young lady’s accomplishments even more incredible?
“Being a woman in aviation,” Muhammad said. “Only 1% are Black women, and then only 3% are women, in general, in aviation, so when that came to me I was like, I have to do this now, I have to add to the 1%,” Muhammad said.
“I am just amazed,” said Anicia Muhammad, Yanees’ mom. “Words can’t explain how happy I am for her."
Laura Motush, The principal of The Academies at South Mountain, says their goal for students is to not only graduate with their high school diploma but to have an industry certificate to make them more hirable.
“…and get into some high wage, high demand work right out of high school, if they choose to,” Motush said.
The principal said the school will miss Muhammad next year, but they hope she will continue to visit as a guest speaker in their flight program so she can encourage other kids to do things that seem impossible, but are not.
Muhammad will graduate on May 21 at Veteran's Memorial Coliseum and then she plans to attend South Mountain Community College for her prerequisites to get ahead before heading out of state for college.
“Then I’m going to attend Texas Southern University,” Muhammad said. “I’m so excited for that, and I’m going to get my professional pilot’s license, my bachelor’s in aviation concentration.”
In the long term, Muhammad plans to become an EMS pilot.
When Muhammad isn’t flying, studying, cheering, or running, she’s working at an ice cream shop in Chandler or working on a children’s book.
She is also working to raise money to help pay for furthering her education in Aviation Science and Technology. For more information on how you can help, click here.
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