by | Lauren Stepp
T
he crowded bus struggled down the muddy lane, moving closer to senior Jackie Antiveros’s next stop — Veracruz, Mexico. The current West senior will be doing something a bit different come fall. Rather than joining her peers in pursuing an undergraduate degree, she will be taking a gap year from college to travel in Mexico. “I want the real experience. I want to get back to my roots and learn about my heritage, so I will be traveling across Mexico by bus,” Antiveros said. “Though I will be alone, I have family across the country that I plan on visiting.” As a member of Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Antiveros also hopes her travels will offer opportunities to strengthen her faith through missionary work. “My family has always encouraged us to put God first, knowing that the rest of things would come together,” Antiveros said. “Though deciding between college and a gap year was difficult, I knew that taking time to help other people
learn about the Bible was important. Putting God first instead of my own desires had a tremendous impact on me.” This altruism carries into the senior’s career goals as well. As a Certified Nursing Assistant, the current Health Occupations Students of America president and a caregiver in a nursing home, Antiveros hopes to pursue nursing. “I have always volunteered with the elderly in nursing homes. I am also a caregiver right now, which involves taking care of a person with Alzheimer’s,” Antiveros said. “I see how some people do their job for the paycheck, not because they truly like their job, but I do not want that. I want to make a difference.” Though Antiveros will not be attending 8 a.m. classes or cramming for exams, she affirms that her education will not stop here. “I will keep studying on my own, I don’t want to become a person who forgets everything that they learn. Right now I am even learning Russian,” Antiveros said. “As soon as I return in the spring, I will continue my education.”
by | Emily Turpin & MaryKent Wolff
N
otepad and pen in hand, senior Sarah Littauer watched as an athlete on the wrestling team placed his opponent in a pin during the Falcon Frenzy. Carefully, she jotted down the match results, preparing for the wrestling team’s final round. “My job as a statistician was to keep score of the match and keep track of what was happening during the match,” Littauer said. “I also sat at the head table, and if the referee or coaches had a question about the score of the match, they came to me.” Littauer began taking statistics for Rugby Middle School’s wrestling team in 2007. She claims that her first time taking stats was a nerve-racking experience. “The first time I ever took stats was in my sixth grade year, and I had no idea what I was doing,” Littauer said. “I texted my brother, who was on the bench and wrote down whatever he told me to. It was really embarrassing.” However, seven years and 2,296 matches later, Littauer boasts that
she can “text and take stats — all at once.” “When I started, my brother was a wrestler at Rugby, my oldest brother was a wrestler here at West, and my brother Samuel was also just getting involved with club wrestling,” Littauer said. “I decided that I wanted to do something that would support them while doing something that I would enjoy.” Though taking stats was initially a way of entertaining herself during her three brothers’ matches, she has come to love the task. Not wanting to give it up, Littauer made the decision to continue at Appalachian State University in the fall where she will be a freshman pursuing a bachelor of arts degree in photography.. “I really loved my time takings stats for high school, and I wanted to keep going. It’s something that I’m good at, and I really like to do it. It makes me feel involved,” Littauer said. “I was talking to Coach (Jeff) Smith who offered to email the wrestling coach at Appalachian. He emailed him and told him that I was interested in taking stats for him.”
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