At 9 years old, Nolan Yamada is quite the busy boy.

He plays baseball, basketball, football and golf. He maintains a vegetable garden, rides horses and is a Boy Scout. This year alone, he has put in more than 100 hours of community service.

“Anything I don’t do?” Nolan says. “Ummm … no.”

He’s at the top of his class and has won awards in math and for student of the month. He’s earned perfect attendance and made the honor roll.

Nolan’s teacher says he’s thirsty for knowledge, the type of kid to hear about something in class, then go home and learn everything he can about it.

“He really enjoys learning and he really enjoys getting actively involved in things,” says Curt Moore, Yamada’s third-grade teacher at John C. Fremont Elementary in Fowler.

One thing that stands out the most about Nolan is his willingness to help others. In class, he assists other students. At home, he helps his little brother with his homework. “I like helping people ’cause then once I help some people they become my friends,” Nolan says, “and I like lots of friends.”

He also likes science. For now, he’s narrowed his future plans to two things: He wants to be a doctor or work for NASA. Recently, he was on a Science Olympiad team that built a bottle rocket.

“I want to go work at NASA because my teacher, he really showed us some cool things about science,” Nolan says. “I want to be a doctor because I think it’s kinda cool. I watch a lot of movies with doctors in them.”