Whiz Kid--Jordan Rhym

One of the performers in the Lullabies for Lukas benefit at Hendershot’s Friday night will be 11-year-old Jordan Rhym. She’ll be the smiling girl on the drums, playing with friends of her older brother Chad in a band called Jordan and Two High School Dudes.

Jordan, a sixth grader at Clarke Middle School, has been playing drums for a while, participating in camp and now studying drums at the . But drums aren’t her only instrument—Jordan has taken piano lessons and also plays cello in the school orchestra.

“I’m happy to have found orchestra,” she says. “It’s given me a chance to learn how much I love playing the cello.” Still, if she had to choose her favorite instrument, she says she would pick drums. And her favorite drummer? Right now, it’s Kim Thompson, Beyonce’s drummer.

Jordan says she practices instruments on the weekend. Her brother is also musical, playing both the piano and the guitar.

If she could create a perfect day, she would be at the beach with her family. They would have a picnic, maybe swim in the waves, play some volleyball and just hang out, relaxing. Perhaps because her birthday falls on Bastille Day, Jordan says she would love to visit France one day.

During the week, Jordan is very involved in school, where she takes a seventh grade advanced math class. She arrives early most mornings for her many extracurricular activities: Monday, it’s International Ambassadors, Tuesday is Math Counts, Wednesday is Leo Club, Thursday is Math Counts and Friday?

“Friday is my day off,” she says with a laugh. Friday afternoons, she likes to go to Beechwood shopping center with her friends after school, heading to or the movies.

She also works at the school media center, and is a member of the Scholar Club, 4H and FFA. At Cleveland Road and at Timothy elementary schools, Jordan was a curious, dedicated student, eager to learn, happy to be with her teachers and classmates. She's also an altar server at the UGA Catholic Center. Last school year, she took enrichment classes at UGA on Saturday mornings.

Doesn't this young woman ever get tired?

“Jordan wants to try everything and has no preconceived boundaries of who she is or what she can do, which is why she's into everything,” says her mom Kecia Thomas, a University of Georgia psychology professor. Jordan’s dad, Darren Rhym, is an English professor at Gainesville State.

"She really is a girl with no intellectual boundaries," Kecia says. "When she asks me what will she do when she grows up, I tell her that her job probably hasn't been created yet, but she wil be great at it."

Does Jordan have plans for college?

Duke University sounds like a great place, she says. She knows college is going to be exciting, and if she could go anywhere, she would like to try Harvard.

If she sets her sights on Harvard, you can bet this young woman will be wearing Crimson in a few years.