Eighth-grade student Emily Carel is already an award-winning poet. Now she can add another honor to her resumé.

Carel recently was selected as Sequim Sunrise Rotary’s Middle School Student of the Month for November.

Born in Port Angeles but raised in Sequim, Carel plays volleyball and says she loves art and reading. Her creative talents have earned the young student a third-place award in the Kiwanis

poetry contest in sixth grade and first place in seventh grade. She was in the Sequim Middle School talent show playing the marimbas and she won a "Best in Show" award at the Sequim Museum Student Art Show.

Carel says she plans to go to a great art school and get a bachelor’s degree, then also major in business and open her own art gallery. She also intends to practice her art in different areas of the world while she is doing humanitarian work.

Carel is the daughter of Jill and Bill Carel of Sequim. Her brother Jake is 18 years old.