Today's Neighbourhood Hero graduated from Nanaimo District Secondary School last spring with a 4.0 grade point average. As well as earning a place on the Principal's List, she was also chosen as class valedictorian and won the Personal Achievement and Peer Helper Awards. While winning all of these honours, 43 year-old Karen Clevette also worked full-time as one of the school's janitors.

That's quite an achievement for a woman who for 26 years, "deep down", was convinced she was "stupid" and somehow responsible for having been raped as a 17-year-old Grade 12 student at the same high school, something she kept secret for years. The emotional struggle that followed that event led to her dropping out of school and fighting a 10-year battle with drugs and alcohol, a battle that was won 15 years ago this coming February 3.

"I want to talk publicly about the rape incident," she says, "because it is shame that kept me from talking and shame that still silences many today. I was a victim. I have nothing to be ashamed of."

The first 15 years of Karen's working career were spent with BC Tel as an operator. Her last assignment was to go into local Nanaimo schools to teach kids how to use the phone in an emergency. Soon after that she quit her job because he had found her calling. She wanted to work with the kids in School District 68. One job led to another and eventually, she found herself back at NDSS working as a daytime janitor.

A year and a half ago, on his deathbed, her father's last wish was that she should complete her high school education. She registered in Grade 12 that September.

"When I was chosen as class valedictorian, I cried all the way home. It was like a dream come true," she says. I kept thinking 'Are you looking Dad?' And when I learned that I was on the Principal's List, I couldn't wait to get to my Mother's house. When I showed her my report card, she cried and so did I. It was fabulous."

Karen's current goals include finishing a book she's writing about the positive people who have come into her life and then to appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show to promote it. She talks about Oprah with her tongue only half way in her cheek. She is also working to upgrade her Grade 12 math marks so she can get into university and complete a child psychology degree but she'll continue to work as a janitor at NDSS even with that degree.

"I'm needed here," she says. "It's my purpose. Working as a janitor allows me to be with the kids who have dropped through the cracks. There really are no bad kids," she continues, "just sad kids. I know from my own experience."

When asked about her own Neighbourhood Heroes, Karen named nine friends most of whom work at NDSS, Cindy Stanley, Sherry Elwood, Dana Andjelkovic, Leslie McInneny, Rhonda Bingham, Tracey Stevens, Necky Johnny, Ray Kocher and John Blaine. "They encouraged me, coaxed me and wiped my tears when I was about to give up," she says.

When asked to choose the three Neighbourhood Heroes who have had the most influence on her life, she chose Amy Beck, a Grade 4 resource teacher who taught at Quesnel school, her Grade 12 English teacher, Mr. Schweers and her husband Ken. "I could cry when I think about Ken," she concludes. "He's a person who gives a lot and asks for nothing. He and my three kids are my greatest supporters."