Where are they going?; Isabella Romero
Isabella Romero sets her goals high and applies for the Naval Academy
After graduating from Mead High School, Isabella Romero hopes to follow in her father’s footsteps. “My dad was a corpsman in the military,” she said, “so I kind of want to follow his lead.” She has applied to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, a prestigious school that is highly selective. Motivated by a desire to help people, she aspires to become a military nurse, an especially important role in the military.
She said that she would be very excited if she does get accepted, “But it’s gonna be a lot of hard work. I’ve heard the first year is hell if you go to an academy.” Getting accepted is no small feat, but the the hard part won’t be over then. Naval Academy attendees will face a full schedule. “They make you do, like, a ton of hours, I don’t even know. Normal classes, military classes, and others,” said Romero.
Her motivation to finish out her senior year with flying colors is the lofty requirements of the Academy, as it is comparable to Ivy League Schools. With the competitive nature of the school in mind, Romero has also applied to the University of Northern Colorado, where she would pursue a nursing degree as well, potentially adding a minor in American Sign Language.
Teacher Feature: Ms. Warren
Mead students are happy to have such an interactive and supportive history teacher
Ms. Erin Warren, a social studies teacher at Mead High School, started teaching about 26 years ago. Ms. Warren was born in Orlando, Florida. She graduated high school at Winter Haven High School. While she was in Florida, Warren received her bachelor’s degree from the University of North Florida.
After teaching at Lake Gibson Middle School (in Lakeland, Florida) hurricanes Charlie, Francis, and Jean traveled over central Florida. “They hit our house, and we lost our roof, and we lost a whole bunch of fences. We were fortunate to have friends who worked in construction, so while other people’s homes didn’t get fixed, ours got fixed quickly,” said Warren.
Warren, her husband, and two year-old daughter at the time were affected by these disasters. Warren said, “We had no electricity for six weeks, and with a two year old in Florida, that’s awful.”
After the hurricanes, she asked her husband to apply for jobs “anywhere that’s beautiful” — he applied for jobs in California, Virginia, Carolina, and Colorado. “He got a job in Colorado, so we picked up and moved because I did not want to live with hurricanes anymore.”
Ever since she was a little kid, Warren wanted to be a teacher. Although when she started college a teacher whose class she was observing said, “Don’t ever go into teaching.”
After that Warren changed her major to forestry because she’s always been interested and passionate about the environment. After exploring the subject, Warren realized that she “loves the environment but [she] doesn’t love chemistry, science, and biology”.
She ended up going into political science then worked for a lobbyist before finding that politics are a “little bit shady and dirty”. After all of that, Ms. Warren decided to give teaching another try and she received her teaching license.
“As much as that one teacher said, ‘Don’t ever go into it.’ I found I really love it. So I started there and took a whole little path to get [back] there,” she said.
Ms. Warren said she loves history and always wanted to teach it. “History is just all stories, and everyone loves to hear a good story.”
Warren “is an amazing advocate for all of her students and works diligently to make sure that each of her students is seen and heard in her classroom,” said Ms. Shannon Martenson. “She also wants to have people be celebrated, seen, and accepted for who they are.”
Martenson loves Ms. Warren’s “southern-isms”— “everybody’s a ‘dear’ and a ‘darling’ and a ‘honey’”.
We are grateful to have Ms. Warren at MHS.
Raul Mares is a junior. He enjoys hanging out with friends, nature, being active, listening to music, and drawing. Raul is looking forward to being in journalism, making new friends, meeting new people and writing interesting pieces for the student body.