By Rita McInerney

Kristen Rebstock, of St. Lawrence parish in Lawrenceville, was honored as Youth of the Year by the Atlanta Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women at its annual Recognition Day Feb. 17 at the Cathedral of Christ the King.

She was selected from among 33 high school seniors chosen as Youth of the Year in their respective parishes. She received a $50 savings bond from AACCW. Honored at the same time were Women of the Year from the parishes.

Kristen, 17, and a senior at Central Gwinnett High School is vice president of the parish youth group, a lector and helps plan parish liturgies.

She made a SEARCH weekend in January, 1989. This is a program for youth 16 and over based on life experiences related to their Christian life. Since then she has worked on teams for two weekends and will be a team member on March 23 to 25. She sees SEARCH as “building a support group for yourself if you have problems. It makes you feel more confident about yourself, that you are a good person.”

She has also deepened her understanding at the summer Christian Leadership Institute sponsored by the archdiocesan Office of Religious Education. She has participated in the CLI advanced section.

She spends a lot of time with the youth group and has found that everyone has problems. But she knows from her own family and her SEARCH experience that love and friendship are all-important. “Everyone has problems. If you have one I want to be there to help you,” is the guide she follows.

Bruce Keehner, parish youth director since August, 1989, sees her as “a real gutsy person.” With new families joining the parish weekly there are often teens uneasy in their new environment and inclined to rebel, he said.

He was present at one meeting that she found herself unexpectedly conducting. Some teens gave her a rough time and at the break, he could see that she was near tears, hurt by their loud unfriendliness. But she went back to the meeting and carried on despite her own pain, he explained.

She is an accelerated English student at Central Gwinnett, a member of the National Honor Society and the Beta club for students with 90 and above grades. She represented the school Beta at state conventions in the past two years.

She is an assistant editor on the school newspaper, Excalibur. One of her recent editorials was on prejudice in which she argued “that people should be treated for what they have on the inside, not on the outside.”

She was 1989 school winner in the countrywide writing fair. Mosaic, for a personal narrative, “Trains and Roses,” she wrote about her grandfather’s death from cancer when she was 10 years old. Her English teacher last year, Patsy Price, termed it “beautifully written.”

Kristen, daughter of Joseph and Linda Rebstock, is following her engineer father’s footsteps and is enrolled at Georgia Tech. She has a brother Ryan, 10, and a sister Shelly, 15.