Sometimes life seems to happen all at once, and for Savannah James of Kernersville it happened during her senior year at R.J. Reynolds High School in Winston-Salem.

In addition to maintaining a 4.6 GPA, James enrolled in two classes at Forsyth Technical Community College. She volunteered at an ESL program and volunteered to help kids who are blind and visually impaired. On top of all of that, she took on extra responsibilities at home as her family cared for a grandmother with a terminal lung disease.

“She would drive her brother to school, run errands, and still kept up her grades up,” said Savannah’s mother, Beth. “I don’t know if I could have gotten through that without her.”

James, who will be attending High Point University this fall, said it was a hard year, but it helped her grow and become more responsible.

Beth James said she will always cherish the way her daughter responded to those senior year challenges. “I was always proud of her,” said Beth. “But as the year went on, I was even more proud because of how hard she worked.”

Beth shared Savannah’s senior year story in the lottery’s N.C. Proud Moment in Education contest, becoming one of ten people to win $20,000. She plans to use the money to pay Savannah’s tuition at High Point University.

In the N.C. Proud Moments contest, the Education Lottery asked North Carolinians to share their proudest moments in education and how they would use $20,000 to create more proud moments. The lottery received hundreds of moving responses. A panel of judges chose 10 winners from the 100 entries that got the most votes. The contest helped mark the lottery’s 10th anniversary as it raises money to support education programs in North Carolina. Since 2006, the lottery has raised more than $4.6 billion. The winners’ submissions and a video featuring their stories are posted on the N.C. Proud Moments website, located at http://www.ncproudmoments.com/.