Two Gorham graduates – Adrienne Rosenblatt and Deanna Welch – are planning futures that will take them far from their hometown. Rosenblatt will be traveling abroad this summer before she begins studying biological science and possibly music at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and Welch will be heading into basic training before she goes wherever her eight-year contract with the Army takes her.
Adrienne Rosenblatt
Adrienne Rosenblatt is an 18-year-old graduate who will tell you she’s not returning to Maine after college before you can even finish asking her the question.
“Whatever I do, I want to make it international,” said Rosenblatt. No doubt a likely goal for her. She’s traveled through North America, Latin America, and Western Europe already, some of the travel with her father, a cardiologist, on medical missions.
Rosenblatt will be attending Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., this fall, where she plans to study biological science and possibly music.
A percussionist with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, Rosenblatt will be traveling to Germany and the Czech Republic this summer. She’ll also be going to Maine Jazz Camp at the University of Maine at Farmington. Obviously, music is a passion of hers. But that’s a bachelor of arts degree, and she’s thinking a bachelor of science degree would be better to prepare her for studying medicine and becoming a doctor.
“I really like foreign language too,” she said. She’s got a plan to tackle Spanish, French, Italian, and maybe German. She’s not expecting to become fluent in all of them, but at least one, reaching a conversational level in the others if nothing else.
It’s a list of big goals, but her time in high school shows she can do it.
“When I don’t have a bunch of stuff to keep me busy, I don’t like it,” she said. “I like being busy and I like doing a lot of things.”
Rosenblatt, in addition to her musical activities, was a player for the varsity ice hockey team and president of the National Honor Society, where she helped revamp programs and organized a memorial dance for Lauren Hawkes, who died from leukemia while she and the other members of the Class of 2008 were in seventh grade.
“She should be part of our class,” Rosenblatt said.
Looking back on her years as a high school student, she credits her involvement with out-of-school activities as something that has forged her and prepared her to head off to college. The type of person who is friends with everyone in high school and not just a single clique, Rosenblatt is ready to hit New York and pursue her career.
Deanna Welch
Deanna “Dee” Welch is counting down the days left before she gets to ship out on an eight year contract with the Army.
“I’m so excited to be leaving Gorham,” Welch said on Saturday with extra emphasis. “One month, 14 days!”
Then she’s off to Fort Jackson, S.C., for basic combat training, and to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, for advanced individual training as an animal control specialist. She hopes to make a career out of the Army, and jokes that she’ll use her $60,000 enlistment bonus to get a “Lamborghini Diablo, hot pink with lime green runners.”
“If women were allowed to go infantry, I would have done it,” said Welch, who has a black belt in Shotokan karate.
Karate, which Welch has been doing for nine years, is what got her through high school.
“Honestly, I hated high school… It’s definitely not as glamorous as the shows make it out to be,” she said, referencing television programs like Degrassi.
Welch, none too afraid to throw around what she really thinks, said some of the teachers at the high school need to take classes on being people persons.
Except Scott Caulfied, a history teacher.
“He’s definitely a teacher there for your well-being,” Welch said.
Welch tried to get into a few in-school activities, but “it wasn’t very successful.” She didn’t make the volleyball team, and class officer positions weren’t for her – they were popularity contests more than anything else, she said. Her involvement with karate outside of school was “the best thing I’ve ever done,” and has taught her self confidence, discipline, courage and public speaking.
“I love being up in front teaching martial arts,” she said. For the past two years she has been head instructor at Fournier’s karate center in Windham.
While more than ready to get out of Gorham, Welch said she’s definitely going to miss living here.
“It’s all I know,” she said. Welch has lived in the same house all her life. “But I’m glad to be getting my worldly experiences.”
Welch wants to see the world. She’s excited to live in a place with more diversity than Maine.
“I’d like to be in a class where white people are the minority,” Welch said, remembering with disgust some students who circulated a petition to wear the Confederate flag.
As Welch enters the Army and prepares to travel to distant destinations, she’ll keep her memories of friends and growing up in Gorham. She’ll also be wearing a rubber ducky tattoo on her right ankle, a tribute to her friend and neighbor Nicholas Townsend, who passed away with his father in a carbon monoxide accident in 2006.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
