Delta's top graduate inspires others to never give up

Delta High School's valedictorian Kolton Benoit is a whiz with computers. He's open and friendly, talkative and personable. He also is autistic, but that hasn't gotten in the way of his reaching goals.

Benoit will attend Southeast Missouri State University this fall to major in computer science, and he may minor in networking. He aspires to be an information technology specialist.

Benoit thinks he'll like college. He's excited about computer science classes and freedom the college life offers, but he‘ll miss being an unofficial in-house IT at the school.

Delta High School 2013 Valedictorian - Kolton Benoit (Laura Simon)

Benoit already has job shadowed a few different IT employees, one employed with Phoenix Computer Solutions who helped with Delta's technology, and another at his uncle's advertising business, Red Letter Communications. He's helped fix a few computers at the school after they crashed, replacing hard drives and cloning computers.

"As far back as I can remember, I've always been interested in computers," Benoit said.

He works on computers, knows them inside and out, and he's also a gamer. He plays MineCraft often.

Benoit is a devoted PC guy. Give him a Mac, and he can work it, but he won't be happy about it.

Benoit knows what he likes, and that's to be able to personalize everything. Apple doesn't measure up on that front.

"The user interface is more friendly," he said. "But if you're someone like me and like to customize everything and put things in different places, you don't like that."

Benoit's parents bought him a laptop for graduation, a 17-inch Toshiba with an I7 processor in it. It was supposed to be a surprise, but he helped pick it out.

"They knew I'd have a fit if they picked out the wrong one," he said.

Benoit said it's easy to succeed in school: schoolwork first, hobbies next.

His mom said as long as he worked hard, even if he got a bad grade, it was all right as long as he put in as much effort as possible.

"But it turns out I got good grades, just from working hard," Benoit said.

He is extremely proud of receiving first place in the Southeast Missouri Regional Science Fair in the computer science and mathematics division. He was the only one in the computer science portion, but the judges give awards on merit.

Benoit said if they think you haven't done well, it doesn't matter if you're the only one, you won't place.

"You still have to earn your place," he said.

Benoit said after Christmas break, his science teacher, Connie Hodge, encouraged him to enter.

"At our school, we have our server racks in the computer classroom because we don't have a dedicated server room, and they have to keep the AC on all the time so [the computers] don't overheat," he said. "I wanted to show that they worked better if they're cooler."

For his project, Benoit put a computer in a freezer, refrigerator and then two hot boxes. He mounted thermometers for temperature readings. He tested how long it took from hitting the "on" button to getting to the login screen and how long the temperature took to stabilize. He also tested the time it took to load certain programs.

Benoit also won the Intel Excellence in Computer Science Award for his project.

Benoit was a member of NHS and FBLA, and he finished 50 hours for the A+ program this last year as a senior.

"Never give up," he said. "Don't let people tell you that you can't do something just because they say you can't. They may not be right if you keep trying."

botto@semissourian.com