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Graduates to watch in the class of 2015
Meet 10 high school students whose journeys have included triumph, struggle and everything in between.
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Look out, world, here we come
Brimming with optimism, these graduating seniors plan to keep their lists of accomplishments growing.They have toiled and excelled in the classroom. Struggled and triumphed on the playing field. Wrestled with self-doubt, disability, depression and scorn from others to meet challenges head on and succeed.
This month, thousands of young Mainers are making one of life’s great transitions at high school graduations across the state. Here are the stories of 10 remarkable members of the class of 2015 and their journeys so far.
We asked area high school administrators to identify seniors who, because of heart, talent or toughness, are likely to make a difference in the world. Then we narrowed the list and, in keeping with the selfie generation, asked the grads to take out their smartphones and send us a personal photo.
They include three children of immigrants and several social activists. Their career goals include preaching, teaching and healing people. They have already accomplished and overcome much – including poverty and homelessness – to earn their diplomas. And they want to do more.
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Grace Fan, Falmouth High
Grace Fan realized the broader potential of her communication skills when she was chatting recently with a student from Cape Elizabeth High School. She also has come to recognize the healing power of communication in her own life.
Fan met the Cape High student at a track meet. The girl mentioned the Facebook page that Fan created last fall, “Faces of Falmouth High School.” Fan has taken and posted hundreds of photos of fellow students and staff members, along with their answers to revealing questions.
“I guess I have quite the fan base in Cape Elizabeth,” said Fan, sounding baffled but proud. “The page is ‘liked’ by over 1,100 people, including faculty members, moms and dads, and people outside Falmouth.”
Capitalizing on her interest in photojournalism, Fan started the Falmouth High page as her senior project and modeled it after forerunners such as “Humans of New York.”
While Fan has been surprised by the page’s growing popularity, she’s also found solace in the habit of taking photos and asking questions and helping people get to know one another a little better.
“I went through a hard time last year,” Fan said, referring to a friend’s sudden death. “It impacted me a lot. It taught me about life and the importance that one person can have. I learned the value of the individual.”
The daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, Fan also was feeling a bit disconnected from her peers. While she has lots of friends, she felt her Asian ethnicity set her apart in a mostly white community. Working on the Facebook page minimized those differences.
“I found a kind of diversity in the individuals I photographed because each person is different,” Fan said. “I learned that it’s unfair to generalize because I found an incredible variety of interests and experiences. OK, I’m Asian and they’re white, but it doesn’t matter. I kind of melted the barriers, including those among students and teachers who often don’t get to know each other very well.”
Fan will attend Williams College in Massachusetts in the fall. She hasn’t settled on a major, but she knows what she wants to do.
“I’ve learned that small actions can make waves through a community,” Fan said. “I’m interested in people’s stories and I hope that stays with me throughout my life. I have a definite interest in humanity as a whole and I hope to connect people.”
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Alana Franklin, Freeport High
Alana Franklin doesn’t know exactly how old she is.
Born in southern China, she lived in an orphanage in Guangzhou, a city of 14 million people, from the time she was 3 or 4 years old until she was adopted by a Maine woman 10 years ago. She was pegged as 8 years old then, so she is officially 18 now.
The last decade has brought Franklin heartbreaking challenges and deep gratitude for the people who she says have helped her cope with emotional abuse, depression and homelessness along the way.
“I’m really into thanking people right now because I’ve gotten a lot of help through the years,” she said.
Franklin and her adoptive mother never bonded, she said. As Franklin grew older, resentments and emotional strains increased, she said. The summer before her junior year, Franklin visited relatives in California to give the relationship a break. When she returned to Maine in August, she moved in with an aunt, who lived in another town, and switched high schools.
“That was a difficult, life-changing moment for me,” Franklin said. “But I didn’t want to lose sight of my goals, because I have a vision of what my life will be like and I know what I want my future to be.”
Franklin struggled with depression through her junior year, she said, but counseling helped her cope and keep up with her schoolwork. In March of her junior year, Franklin moved in with a family friend in Freeport. She enrolled at Freeport High School, settled in, made friends, even got a job that she loves at a senior living facility.
In January, Franklin found herself on the verge of being homeless again. Her best friend, Madison Fleenor, invited Franklin to move in with her family.
“They’re the most amazing people,” Franklin said. “Before them, I was always battling with people to feel safe in my own skin. (Fleenor’s family) threw their door wide open and accepted me without reservation. Now, they’re the anchor in my life. I feel like I’m able to be happy for real.”
Franklin will attend Wheaton College in Massachusetts in the fall to study biomedical research. She’d like to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease or depression.
“I’ve gone through depression and I know how hard it is,” she said. “I’d like to find a solution so people don’t have to take copious amounts of medication.”
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David Frye, Greater Portland Christian School
David Frye was a sophomore when he first felt the Holy Spirit help him share the word of God.
He had an opportunity to preach before fellow students and faculty members at the Greater Portland Christian School in South Portland. It was during a weekly chapel service and he was nervous, but he embraced the challenge. He had something to say about the inner peace and spiritual clarity that can be found in the Bible when it’s viewed as a living guidebook.
“Over the years, God has given me an increasing knowledge of Scripture and what it means,” Frye said. “It was really nerve-racking, going in front of my peers, but with guidance from the Holy Spirit, it was just like talking with friends. I barely remember the moment, but I’m pretty sure my hands were shaking the whole time.”
His trepidation went unnoticed. The response from his classmates and teachers was encouraging, uplifting. Soon after, he asked to preach before his hometown congregation at the Hollis Center Baptist Church.
“I have no idea why I asked,” Frye said. “Once again, I was nervous, but the Lord provides.”
He prepared a sermon, but God took over again, he said. Afterward, several church members told him: “You have a calling. You need to follow this.”
And so he has.
In the fall, Frye will enroll at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. Founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the late conservative televangelist, it’s the largest evangelical Christian university in the world and the largest private, nonprofit university in the United States.
As a freshman, Frye will be placed in service at a congregation, where he hopes to hone his ability to summon wisdom from God’s word and inspire faith among his listeners. It’s something he clearly relishes.
“It’s an adrenaline rush,” Frye said. “I find it so exciting to see God work through his word. I have such a love for the Scripture and I love to share it with people. When I preach, it’s not my ideas, it’s God’s.”
Frye sees his calling in line with friends who plan to pursue careers in public safety or music.
“God calls us to the work that we’re meant to do,” he said. “I hope to strengthen the church. We’re going through a period of great change and the church is going to have to adapt. At the end of the day, the only answer is God. Christ is the only thing that satisfies me.”
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Garrett LaFrance, Massabesic High
Garrett LaFrance was a sophomore heading into his junior year at Massabesic High School in Waterboro when he noticed a pattern.
“Kids coming into the high school weren’t getting the best support,” said LaFrance, who lives in Alfred. “I noticed a bit of a divide between upperclassmen and (underclassmen). Freshmen, especially, are somewhat isolated because they take their core classes in a separate building.”
So LaFrance set out to break down barriers and establish connections between older and younger students, especially those who might need a little encouragement and guidance in establishing good attendance and study habits, joining clubs or teams and generally meeting people and fitting in.
Throughout his junior year, LaFrance developed and proposed a protocol for a Peer Advisory Program that would pair upperclassmen with freshmen and sophomores. During his senior year, LaFrance helped the guidance department implement the program, inviting upperclassmen to apply and assisting in the selection of eight peer advisers for the inaugural year.
By the end of January, each peer adviser was paired with a freshman or sophomore advisee. The students met only a few times, so it’s difficult to gauge the program’s success. Still, LaFrance sees potential for the fledgling effort, especially as his sister, Joanna, a sophomore, is poised to take his place in promoting the program.
“The results will be easier to see in the future,” LaFrance said. “There’s a need to help new students establish a good foundation that sticks with them for the rest of high school. I think both the underclassmen and their student advisers can benefit from it. It comes down to being good role models.”
The oldest of four children, LaFrance said his parents, Jim and Brenda, raised him to help people in need and take action when something could be improved. In addition to playing tennis and serving on the student council, he works at his grandmother’s sandwich shop, Papa’s Place, in Sanford and he’ll be a lifeguard this summer at Camp Laughing Loon in Waterboro.
In the fall, LaFrance will attend the University of Maine to study nursing, and he may continue on to become a nurse anesthetist or anesthesiologist.
“I’m a really compassionate person,” LaFrance said. “I always have been, ever since I was a little kid. Going under and having surgery is such a stressful situation. I want to help people feel better and get well.”
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Keyly Martinez, Catherine McAuley High
Keyly Martinez was born in Portland, a daughter of hardworking immigrants from El Salvador. When she was a year old, her mother sent her to live with her grandparents in their Central American homeland.
She returned to the United States in 2005, first to Massachusetts, where her mother had found work. She started third grade speaking only Spanish. In 2008, her family returned to Portland, where she enrolled at King Middle School. By then, she spoke English well enough to take honors classes.
“That’s pretty much when it all started,” Martinez said, referring to educators and others who have become her extended family, including staff members at Catherine McAuley High School.
“They encouraged me to be a leader and provided the opportunity to grow,” Martinez said. “They really care for the person I am and want me to be all I can be.”
That support intensified in January, when her mother again had to leave Maine to find work. Marie Eschner, guidance director at Catherine McAuley, welcomed Martinez into her home so she could finish high school here.
“Marie and the others are my little family right now,” Martinez said. “It’s a group of women supporting me who have a mindset to help others. It’s only right that I continue that.”
Martinez has spent much of the last four years helping others, including volunteer work with the Salvation Army, Mercy Hospital and Sacred Heart Food Pantry. She also participated in the Otisfield-based Seeds of Peace global youth leadership program, where she learned that listening is a major part of effective communication.
“Now, I listen to people to understand and not just respond right afterward,” Martinez said. “It’s such a different way of communicating. It’s what allows people to feel they can effect change in their own lives and communities.”
Martinez, who identifies herself as “queer” and says she’s “pretty androgynous” and doesn’t fit “heteronormative ideas of most people,” helped to start a gay, straight and transgender student alliance at Catherine McAuley, a Catholic high school for girls. She’s also an AmeriCorps organizer, working with Portland youth to address educational, racial, ethnic and socioeconomic barriers.
Martinez will attend Wheaton College in Massachusetts in the fall to study business management and social justice so she can run a nonprofit to help minorities and women.
“I want to give back as best I can wherever I go,” she said.
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Mohamed Nur, Deering High
Mohamed Nur was in seventh grade when he first faced the challenge of being a person of color in a Maine classroom.
The moment came one day in math class, when certain students at Portland’s King Middle School were summoned to the library to take an assessment test that’s given to English-language learners.
Though Nur was born at Maine Medical Center in Portland, his parents are Somali immigrants, so English wasn’t his first language. He stood up and looked around. He was the only kid in the room who had to take the test. He saw judgment in the eyes of his classmates.
“They saw me for the first time as different,” Nur told a Brunswick audience in a 2013 TEDx video. “I saw myself for the first time as different. The only person of color in the whole room.”
Since then, Nur has wrestled with that difference and triumphed, becoming a student leader at Deering High School and beyond. As a student member of the Portland School Board and the NAACP Portland Branch, he is recognized as a gifted public speaker on issues of race, religion, poverty, education, peace and unity.
Nur credits his parents, Nadifo and Muqtar Ayanle, with having the courage and tenacity to leave their war-torn homeland, adapt to a different culture in the United States and work to provide a better life for him and his younger sister.
“The amount of love and admiration I have for them, I can’t even quantify,” Nur said.
Nur also praises the Otisfield-based Seeds of Peace global youth leadership program. That’s where he discovered the power within himself and every individual to fight and overcome prejudice, division and hatred in the world.
“I figured out who I was – not only a proud Somali son, but also a proud Mainer and a proud American,” Nur said.
Nur will attend Bowdoin College in the fall. He plans to study government, economics and Arabic, with an eye toward working in international relations. He has heard stories about how beautiful and prosperous Somalia used to be, before nearly 25 years of civil war.
“My dream is to go to Somalia and help with stabilizing that country,” Nur said. “I hear people describe it as a failed state and it upsets me because it sounds like they’ve given up. If I could help bring the beauty back to Somalia, it would benefit the whole world.”
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Kylie Reynolds, Kennebunk High
It’s telling that Kennebunk High School administrators recommended Kylie Reynolds for the Sunday Telegram’s annual “Graduates to Watch” feature even before they were asked.
She’s a standout not only for challenging herself academically at school, taking both Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes, but also for her work in the community, caring for preschool children, special education students and seniors, and for her active role at home, helping to raise adopted siblings who have disabilities.
“It’s a busy household,” Reynolds said. “There are 10 of us, and I’m really the only one who helps my mom.”
Through the years, Reynolds’ parents, Marcia Walker and Warren Reynolds, cared for more than 10 foster children. They adopted two of them, Mark, now 14, who has autism and fetal alcohol syndrome, and Nevaeh, 9, who has behavioral challenges. And another foster child, who is in her 20s and has two young children of her own, has rejoined the family.
Now divorced, Reynolds’ mother, who works both as a child care provider and a senior home care aide, recently began studying full time for an associate degree in behavioral health at York County Community College. It’s something Walker couldn’t do without her daughter’s help, but it’s Reynolds who admires her mom’s drive.
“She’s 49 and she’s going back to school,” Reynolds said. “It’s pretty amazing. She’s my superwoman.”
Reynolds also admires her brother Mark, working closely with him in the special education classroom at the Middle School of the Kennebunks, where she’s had an internship. She was there every other day from 11 a.m. to noon, preparing for her career of choice – Reynolds will attend the University of Maine at Farmington in the fall and plans to study special education for children in kindergarten through eighth grade.
“I love my brother to death,” Reynolds said. “I’ve seen him grow. I’ve watched all of his therapy sessions – physical, occupational, speech.”
Given her experience with her brother and other special education students, where others see only disabilities, Reynolds sees possibilities.
“They have such an excitement when they accomplish something,” Reynolds said. “They have a different compassion for people. My brother may be brutally honest about some things, but he really cares about people’s feelings. He cares about people’s safety a lot. And he loves me to death.”
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Daniel Thompson, Gorham High
Daniel Thompson got lost during one cross-country meet.
He was doing fine, running along roads and across fields, paying close attention for the bright orange cones that marked the course. It was more challenging for Thompson than for most of the runners because he’s legally blind, born with achromatopsia, a severe form of colorblindness that causes extreme light sensitivity and reduces visual acuity.
Eventually, Thompson missed one of the cones, made a wrong turn and wound up off course. He laughs when he tells the story now, as he graduates from Gorham High School, because he has learned not to let small setbacks deter him from long-term success.
“I think it’s funny,” Thompson said. “Why not laugh at yourself? I always consider myself very lucky. I know a lot of people who are completely blind and I have it relatively easy.”
Thompson has excelled despite his disability, using advances in technology to overcome the limits of his eyesight and developing the confidence to advocate for himself when barriers were insurmountable.
A monocular made it possible to see the whiteboard in statistics class, and a MacBook Air allowed him to scan worksheets and convert them to PDFs so he could make the type large enough to read. When chemistry lab assignments required him to discern color changes or take fine measurements, he sought help.
“When you ask for it, teachers are pretty accommodating,” Thompson said.
Thompson, who works part time at the Amato’s in Gorham, pushed beyond the usual high school requirements, taking college-level statistics and English courses at the University of Maine last summer.
“So I have two courses done when I start college in the fall,” he said. “And it was cool coming back to my senior year and having an understanding of what college is like and knowing that I’m prepared.”
Thompson plans to attend the University of Southern Maine and become a clinical psychologist. A therapist helped him overcome bouts of anxiety when he was a child and he’d like to help others overcome similar barriers in their lives.
“I think my experiences have made me a little more empathetic toward others with disabilities,” he said. “I know what it’s like to be different. I understand what they’re going through.”
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Morrigan Turner, South Portland
Morrigan Turner’s parents, Peter and Colleen, met while working for Greenpeace, so it’s no surprise that they raised their only child to be interested in environmental and social justice issues.
Turner gladly picked up the mantle, distinguishing herself as a student government leader at South Portland High School, a student representative to the city’s school board and one of three girls at the center of a recent controversy over saying the Pledge of Allegiance in school.
Through it all, her parents’ support was unwavering.
“My parents always let me make my own decisions,” Turner said. “They just made sure I had the information I needed to make the right decision for myself.”
Turner and two friends set out last fall to make sure their peers understood that, under state and federal law, they couldn’t be forced or pressured to say the pledge each morning. Their effort lit a local firestorm that was picked up by national news outlets and fanned by social media. In April, they won the accord they sought when the school administration adopted their formal pledge procedure.
“In education in general, kids are usually left out of the decision-making process,” Turner said. “It shouldn’t be a hard thing to be heard in school. I saw some students who were unable to share how they were feeling and I just wanted to make sure everyone felt safe and comfortable.”
Also an accomplished dancer who works part time at Red’s Dairy Freeze, Turner attributes her gumption and leadership skills to her experience with the Otisfield-based Seeds of Peace global youth leadership program.
“Seeds has really made me who I am,” Turner said. “It’s given me confidence to speak my mind and to speak up for others.”
Turner will attend Vassar College in New York in the fall. She plans to study environmental science, once again following her parents’ lead. But it’s more than that. She sees a need to provide answers in the raging political debates about climate change, renewable energy and the impact of fossil fuels, including the ongoing fight over the future of the crude oil pipeline on South Portland’s waterfront.
“It’s the most practical science,” Turner said of her intended course of study. “It’s all about current events and what’s happening right in front of us.”
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