Grad Joshua McNeal: Alaska fishing guide

• La Center High School

• Call: Alaska fishing guide

A lot of parents wouldn’t let their teenage son travel to Alaska for a summer job at a small fishing lodge on the Kenai River, two and a half hours south of Anchorage. But Josh McNeal, 18, is a pretty persuasive guy.

After a happenstance meeting with the owners of fishing lodge Drifter’s Landing at the Portland Boat Show, McNeal was given the job. His parents didn’t know the lodge’s owners, but McNeal was able to convince them that the gig could lead to something big in the land of the Northern Lights.

And it has.

On June 10, after graduating from La Center High School, he’ll return to the lodge to become a fishing guide before drifting off to college.

An avid angler, McNeal says he loves the idea of guiding tourists from all over the world through the great outdoors. He doesn’t know many people in Alaska, but that’s part of the appeal.

“That’s the thing that excites me — that I don’t know a lot of people,” he said “I can go up there and chart my own path.”

Being a reliable and independent leader is important to McNeal, whose call to service takes many forms.

As a sophomore, he brought a Future Business Leaders of America chapter to his high school, and he serves as the state’s vice chair. He also regularly volunteers at La Center Middle School in its leadership class — the same one that taught him the values of being a strong leader.

After his stint on the Kenai River, McNeal will attend the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, where he plans to major in petroleum engineering.