Graduating last Thursday night in the Westbrook Adult Education ceremony, Ashley Holtan completed a journey quite different from most of her classmates.

When Holtan was 14 years old and had just completed her freshman year at Westbrook, she and her mother had a falling out and Holtan left home. At the time, Holtan wasn’t getting along with her mom’s boyfriend, and her mother gave her the choice to accept him or leave. She left.

Since then, Holtan has lived with the families of friends in Buxton, Portland and Westbrook, never returning to her mother’s home. She’s also taken a year off from school, not of her own choice.

Somehow during the last five years, however, she’s managed to scrape together enough credits between Gorham High School and Westbrook to graduate this year.

“She’s the kind of young lady who didn’t drop out of school but worked very hard to stay in school,” said Jon Ross, head of alternative education at Westbrook High School.

She worked so hard that she won the Stephie Mull Memorial Scholarship, a $500 award reserved for students who show determination to overcome obstacles and achieve their academic goals. Stephie Mull, the daughter of Westbrook alternative learning teacher Jennifer Mull, died from brain cancer when she was nine years old. The Mull family established the scholarship fund to honor Stephie Mull’s strength and bravery facing her disease, according to her mother.

Mull said she chose Holtan for the award because of her determination to stay in school despite the adversity she faced in her life.

“She had every reason not to go to school,” Mull said. “It’s a rare find when you find a kid banging down the doors to get in.”

After Holtan left home at the end of the 2001 school year, she spent a summer living with a friend’s family in Buxton. When the summer ended, the family moved to Florida and asked Holtan to go with them, but she declined.

Instead, she moved to Portland to live with another friend and her friend’s mother and tried to enroll in school. She said she was denied because she had no legal residency and her mother, her legal guardian, wouldn’t give her permission.

After a time, Holtan and her friend ran away from home because the friend wasn’t getting along with her mother’s boyfriend. Holtan moved in with another friend and her family in Buxton, where she stayed for 1 1/2 years. During that time she wasn’t working, was sleeping all day, listening to music and swimming in the pool. It was a dark period for her.

“Life wasn’t as easy for me or as fun for me,” she said. “I wanted so badly to be in school. I wanted to prove to everyone I could make it on my own and succeed in life.”

By chance, one of the adults in the house bumped into Holtan’s uncle, who told Holtan’s father about her situation. Holtan had been estranged from her father, who lives in the area. Her father managed to get her enrolled at Gorham High School. She moved in with him, but only for a week before she and her father clashed and she left to live with another friend and her family in Gorham.

She stayed in Gorham and went to Gorham High School for her sophomore and junior years. She also started working at Hannaford and Kids Culture Child Care to help support herself.

“I decided I needed to learn responsibility on my own,” she said of going to work.

During her junior year she took child care classes at the Westbrook Regional Vocational Center. Those classes did two things. They allowed her to learn about childcare, which is what she wants to do as a profession, and they made her want to return to Westbrook to finish high school.

And that’s what she did. Eighteen years old and no longer a minor, she enrolled herself at Westbrook and transferred to the Westbrook Hannaford. She moved to Portland with a friend but, after difficulties, decided it was time to live on her own and got an apartment.

She said she’s technically a part-time employee at Hannaford, but she works about 40 hours per week to keep up on her bills. Halfway through her senior year it became a problem. She found it too hard to attend school full time during the day and work full time as well.

Instead of giving up, though, she entered the adult education program and worked school around her schedule. Holtan credits the program and also Jenn Mull, her English teacher, for getting her through her senior year.

“Ms. Mull never let me give up, and she helped me out more than anyone has,” she said. “I got my own apartment and needed to work more to pay bills, so she came up with a way for me to get my schooling done and not lose any hours at work. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be standing where I am.”

Holtan said she doesn’t feel bad about how she’s gone about things. She realizes it’s been a struggle, but she also realizes what she’s accomplished by being strong enough to overcome adversity.

“I never really had anyone there for me besides my friends, and if I can do it, anyone can,” she said. “Life is what you make of it. If you take a wrong turn, go back and try again. If it happens again, don’t give up. Keep trying – eventually you’ll make it to where you want to go. You’re the only one who can bring yourself there.”

Holtan is no longer estranged from her mother, and the two have an “awesome” relationship now, she said. She’s still working at the Westbrook Hannaford and hopes to go to college and open a daycare center one day. She said she’s known her whole life she wants to work in childcare.

“I’ve always wanted to work with kids,” she said. “Nothing makes me happier.”

Holtan is the first of her mother’s daughters to graduate from high school. She has two older sisters and one younger sister, who are all in the area.