Emilie Lytle loves to fly.
The graduating senior from Saint John Paul the Great Catholic High School in Dumfries finds everything about science, space and flying to be exciting. So much so she started the school’s first aerospace and astrology club.
“I wanted other people to experience what I experienced,” said Lytle, who plans to study aerospace engineering at the U.S. Naval Academy in the fall. “I want to show them that it can be fun. They may not realize it, but it’s worth it.”
Together with her father, she earned her Level 1 certification for the Northern Virginia Association of Rocketry so they could both launch homemade rockets. Her rocket, “The Patriot,” is 5 feet long.
“It’s just all kinds of fun,” Lytle said of her passion.
This fun she hopes will propel her to a career in aviation.
“I’ll figure it out,” she said when asked what type of plane she hopes to fly. She recently was able to go in a flight simulator for an F-35 and was blown away.
“She’s always been very curious,” Mark Lytle said while describing his middle child. The family has a tradition of going to visit family in Michigan and they launch rockets together. Her uncles follow the latest developments in the space industry, and she has enjoyed this time with them.
“She is very STEM oriented,” he said, adding the family was very proud of her success.
That curiosity and success transfers to the classroom as well.
“She is an academic superstar,” said Chris Wode, who has taught Lytle in advanced math classes for two years.
“She is very inquisitive. She is not afraid to say she doesn’t understand something and will very respectfully say she wants to understand what you are teaching. She won’t stop until she gets it. She will come after school and ask more questions because she always wants to understand,” said Wode, who has taught at Saint John Paul the Great for 11 years.
Lytle started talking to Wode last year about the possibility of attending a service academy and what she should do to prepare herself for the selective process. In a rare move, she was accepted at both the Naval Academy and the U.S Air Force Academy.
“She has been laser focused on flying for so long, so she now knows what she will do in her career,” said Wode, who himself graduated from the Naval Academy in 1978. “She knows where she wants to go. How many high school seniors do you know who have a five-year plan? She has that, and that is what sets herself apart from her peers.”
When she is not focused on flying, Lytle is busy planning fall harvest festivals, co-captaining the girls varsity lacrosse team, earning the Gold Award in Girls Scouts (similar to the Eagle Scout rank for Boy Scouts) or volunteering with the school’s Options program.
Diane Foster, assistant athletic director for the school, has known Lytle since her freshman year, and called her extraordinary.
“She has been a big part of the lacrosse team since she came here. She has been a consistent presence and has helped us grow the team,” said Foster, who also graduated from the Naval Academy in 1987.
This growth has translated to a winning team. Later in the day after she was interviewed, Lytle helped her team win the Virginia Christian Athletic Conference title game against Trinity Christian, 16-14. The team has not always had success, both Lytle and Foster noted, so winning a league championship was a big deal.
“She is just a very positive and supportive person. She doesn’t let a lot of stuff ruffle her. She just keeps going and is not negative. This, along with her optimism, will serve her well at the academy,” said Foster.
Lytle said she loves being on the lacrosse field because she is with her friends, but also, just like flying, she finds it fun. She has played since first grade and says she will try out for Navy’s team once she gets to Annapolis.
Lytle and her family are members of Good Shepherd Church in Alexandria. While she is looking forward to the next step, she said there are so many things she is going to miss about high school. Her sister is a member of the Options program and she loves how welcoming and inclusive the school is for her.
Among the things she most appreciates about John Paul the Great is its bioethics program. In this program, all students spend four years learning how to apply sound reasoning about the human person and moral law to complex biomedical issues, thus learning to reason with the church when approaching beginning and end-of-life decisions.
“It prepares you for the real world,” said Lytle. “It was a tough course, but it has helped me defend what I believe in and prepares you for the real world so you can defend it.”
Shaffrey is diocesan director of media relations.
