Four graduating high school seniors no longer have to worry about college tuition.

Lafayette injury attorney Glenn Armentor, recently awarded his annual “Pay It Forward” scholarships to the four deserving students.

One of them is Angelique Schmidt, a teen who has experienced more adversity than most people do in a lifetime.

The 2019 comeaux high school graduate is not your typical teenager.

She has an impressive G.P.A., vocabulary, is focused, mature and well spoken.

But her life behind her academic success is not pretty.

She comes from a broken home.

She has lived in more places than she can remember.

She recalls, “One moment I’d be in California, the next moment I’d be in Florida. Over my whole life, 18 years, I’ve had nine different schools and four different high schools.”

Mainly because she says her mother was an illegal from Columbia.

Angelique says they may have avoided deportation at the time, but all of that moving did not allow her to escape a nightmare of abuse.

She says, “My dad was a bit more physical and very aggressive. He mellowed a bit over the years at times, but he always maintains that same level of aggressiveness.”

This tenacious teen wanted a different life than her parents and she discovered a source of strength in her mother.

Angelique says, “Mentally it was pretty difficult because there are parts where you want to succumb to the negativity. But as long as you think positive, that’s something my mother always told me, to think positive and positive things will come to you.”

Angelique plans to major in chemistry and become a dermatologist and own her own cosmetic line.