Top 10 Spotlight: Audrey Urbis Started Clubs to Help Students

Audrey Urbis doesn’t just join clubs. She creates them.

The Los Fresnos High School salutatorian now leaves behind a legacy of helping younger students succeed.

“I have a family that encourages and challenges me to maximize my opportunities and make the best of whatever situation I find myself in,” she said. “They encourage me to make ideas happen and never think things are impossible, or dismiss them as impossible.”

The daughter of Michael and Laura Urbis, Audrey founded the school’s RGV Lead student ambassador program and the Ojo a Ojo student mentorship program, and found the time to make both successful.

Academically, she is an AP National Merit Scholar finalist, an AP Scholar with Distinction, and was named to the prestigious Forty Acres Scholar program at The University of Texas at Austin.

But it is Ojo a Ojo and RGV Lead where she has made her mark with other students, starting both organizations as a junior.

In the Ojo a Ojo program, she led a group of about 15 LFHS students that spent about 90 minutes each Thursday for several months with 30-40 Los Fresnos United Ninth Grade Campus students deemed at-risk.

“We shared our lives and experiences with them to help them set goals, plan for the future, and make good decisions,” Audrey said. “We wanted to see them eye to eye in the library about the bright futures ahead.”

The LFHS students helped freshmen with basic math skills and sciences.

“We were able to be role models for them. They looked up to us and saw the kind of decisions we made at the high school level, and the organizations we were involved in. It encouraged them to be like us.”

Mentoring students and facing them eye to eye is a program that is destined to continue at LFHS through counselor Janie Espinoza.

“It’s a lot of about recognizing needs in your life, stepping outside your comfort zone and sitting down with someone else to help them and see their future in a new way and the positive opportunities ahead.”

It is a similar story with RGV Lead, formerly known as Tech Prep of the Rio Grande Valley.

“RGV Lead was a results of my interest in educational outreach, and closing educational disparities between students and make sure students have the awareness, knowledge and resources to succeed after high school,” she said. “We engaged the high-achieving students for this program.”

Audrey and her fellow student leaders hosted more than 15 campus events and addressed students from eight Valley high schools to start similiar initiatives. They spoke to more than 800 students across the Valley to start RGV Lead clubs.

“We’ve established ourselves as a regional template for change across the Valley,” she said. “Some of the other schools are building off what we started here to start their own kinds of initiatives.”

Audrey also participated in DECA and attended national conferences in California and Georgia. “That has inspired my interest in business. I have made some national connections because of DECA.”

She also worked as a U.S. Senate Page last summer, was active in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and contributed stories to the Los Fresnos CISD Communications and Marketing Office that were published on the district website and in The Brownsville Herald.

She plans to major in the Business Honors Program in Plan II at UT-Austin. Her brother, Scott, was LFHS Salutatorian in 2013, and was also chosen as a Forty Acres Scholar. Her older sister Caroline works for Facebook in Austin.

“The opportunities within the Forty Acres program could not be matched elsewhere. I’m really grateful for that.”

Her brother and sister were her mentors.

“My advice to other students is to surround yourself with people who are focused and driven and are going to challenge you. For me, there have been so many teachers, counselors, friends and family have given me unparalleled support.”