King’s Fork High School’s 2012 valedictorian mainly attributes his success to loving a good challenge.

“I’ve always been one of those people who want to push as far as I can,” Ethan Gould said. “It’s just this drive for a challenge in me.”

Gould has challenged himself at King’s Fork with the International Baccalaureate program. According to its website, the IB program operates in 141 countries, developing “intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills for a rapidly globalizing world.”

“Completing that has been a huge challenge,” Gould admitted. “When I first heard about it in the eighth grade, I told my parents, and I think they knew right away that this was what I needed to go into.”

But venturing into a different school zone after attending John Yeates Middle School, and thus leaving those friends behind, Gould hesitated before taking the plunge.

“I felt ultimately that this course was where I needed to be,” he said.

Gould says he discovered he’d earned King’s Fork academic top honors on May 8. “Though I had heard rumors a while back, I still had that little bit of doubt,” he said.

Considering himself somewhat of a generalist, in the fall he will attend the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, to study in its liberal arts school.

“I’m still working out what I’m studying,” he said. “I know at least I want to continue my education to the post-graduate level. I pretty much know that. From where I’m standing, I can see myself going in a lot of different directions.”

If Gould’s extracurricular interests dictate his ultimate path, it could be in the theater or similar field of creative communication. He has been involved in school drama since he was at John Yeates.

“I still remember walking into my first audition,” he said. “I was the first one to go up on stage. I came back the next day and I had been cast in the lead role.”

At last count, he said, he has performed in 13 productions and directed one. He was president of the King’s Fork High School Drama Club this year after serving as vice president last year.

“The thing that really attracts me to acting is the ability to step into another world for a second,” he said. “The same type of thing attracts me with writing. I like creating stories in a lot of different forms.”

He was a member of the King’s Fork High School International Club, and would like to study abroad at same point.

Gould recognized the support of parents Dean and Catherine Gould as well as King’s Fork’s “IB family.”

“They have all been part of the support that has kept me going,” he said.