Teen mother graduates high school with $1M in scholarship offers, top honors



MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Memphis high school student has received more than $1 million in scholarship offers from at least 25 colleges. Now the young mother is sharing how she managed to graduate with honors.

Trezevant High School posted a picture on Facebook congratulating Lamyrical Harris on her achievements:

BREAKING NEWS! We have our first MILLION DOLLAR SCHOLAR in Trezevant history. Our valedictorian, Lamyrical Harris, has been offered a total of $1,244,298 in ACADEMIC scholarships, making her our first to receive this honor. While we've had some amazing athletes throughout Trezevant history, she is the first to earn this amount solely in academic scholarships.


"She came to school. She took care of business, and her motivation has been her child," Assistant Principal Yolanda Sherrod said.

Harris found out she was pregnant during her junior year.

"I was scared. It just made me go 10 times harder," she said.

But she ultimately decided to keep working towards her goals. That meant that after her son, Laderrious Moore, was born, Harris still graduated as a valedictorian.

"I want him to be valedictorian of his class, and I want him to have over a million dollars in scholarships," Harris said.

After having Laderrious, she says there were times she could barely walk, but a teacher helped her stay focused.

"At the end of junior year I had $200,000. By the time I hit senior year, I was at 500,000," Harris said.

Slowly and surely the scholarship offers kept piling up, and days before Harris graduated she learned that she had been offered more than $1 million in total.

She hasn't decided which college she will attend, but she says she'll come back to her alma mater to give back.