Carol Northamer
At age 15 I was a sophomore in high school. My first experience with school was in a one room school house in a very small Kansas farm community called Tub Town. The ‘town’ was actually an intersection with a farm on each of the four corners. At one time all four families shared one wash tub, thus the name Tub Town. Anyway, after attending school in various other parts of the United States and in Great Britain while my father was moved from place to place in the Air Force, I ended up in high school in Rapid City, South Dakota. Being quite “sophisticated’ after traveling the world, I was not interested in cheer leading, sports and other common high school activities so I worked and took as many classes as possible because study hall was such a bore. Looking back, I might have been considered a ‘wall flower’.
One day toward the end of my sophomore year, a school counselor called me into her office to discuss my future. She mentioned that I was only two credits short of graduating a year early. She also asked which college I planned to attend. Prior to this conversation, I hadn’t really thought about what I would do after high school, thinking I had another two years to think about it. As a result of this conversation I took two classes in summer school, skipped my junior year and graduated from high school a year early in a class of 665 students.
I ‘blossomed’ in college and graduated. I taught junior high school for several years and also taught high school and GED classes. After quite a few years I received a Masters in Human Services and Counseling and have been an executive in an agency for many years. I have worked closely with youth much of my career and always strive to be a stepping stone and not a stumbling block as I encourage them to reach their goals.
