Not too long ago, Katie Donoho ran her first-ever half marathon.

Although unofficial, she came away encouraged by her accomplishment of running 13.1 miles that she’s already set her sights at doing the full 26 miles.

“It was fun running that half marathon,” said Donoho, who is closing in on the finish line of her high school experience at Ripon Christian.

She was recently announced as salutatorian – Donoho maintained a 4.27 grade point average during the past four years – and, along with valedictorian Taylor Vos, will help usher in the Class of 2013 at Friday’s commencement ceremony inside the RC gym.

“What I’ll miss about RC is the community environment,” she said last Wednesday. “Everyone here knows your name.”

The daughter of Rob and Becky Donoho will be moving on to sunny Southern California, attending the University of San Diego in the fall.

Katie Donoho will major in economics with a possible minor in Spanish.

She first came to RC as a third grader, and has been active there over the years. In sports, Donoho played volleyball, basketball, soccer and tennis.

But in her freshman year, she tore an ACL playing soccer. At the same time Donoho was hospitalized for the knee injury, her young brother, Josh, was in Oakland Children’s Hospital for ulcerative colitis. The inflammation of the bowels resulted in the youngster having his colon removed.

Katie Donoho did her part on behalf of her brother, spearheading blood drives at the school and orchestrating toy drives during the holidays to benefit the Oakland Children’s Hospital. “We gave about 200 toys to the children that year,” she recalled.

Her brother, Josh, is fully recovered and is also involved at RC.

After the knee injury – it took her about a year to recover – Donoho focused on tennis, where she was all-Southern League for the past three years. She and her doubles partner Lauren Herbert recently captured the league crown while finishing third in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division III tournament.

Donoho stayed close to the volleyball program by serving as team manager for Knights coach Tiger Shelton.

In addition, she was active in the Close Up, one of the renowned Washington, D.C., educational programs, and listed the Knightingale choral group, pep band, Spiritual Leadership and RCA among her endeavors.

Besides running, Katie Donoho plans to continue playing club tennis while away at school.