Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
Pocahontas County High School seniors Grace Beverage and Haley Spencer attended the AAA High School Football Championship in Wheeling back in November to receive the WVSSAC Academic Achievement Award.
Each year, the WVSSAC selects one female and one male student who excel in three categories: band, community service and athletics.
Beverage was selected for her work in band as a member of the color guard and a tenor saxophone player. Spencer was selected for her community service as a certified EMT and member of the Marlinton Fire and Rescue Squad.
Each received a plaque and a $1,000 scholarship.
After graduating from PCHS, both plan to earn degrees in nursing, but in two different aspects of the field.
Beverage plans to work with the elderly after she receives a degree in geriatric nursing.
“I did volunteer at the hospital over the summer, and I connected better with the older patients that came in,” she said.
Spencer plans to become a flight nurse. First she will earn a degree in nursing and then attend flight school where she will learn to use those nursing skills while in flight.
“I have to have three years of experience in the nursing field in the emergency room or ICU and then I’ll go on to flight school,” she said. “When you’re working on a helicopter, it’s just a flight nurse and a flight paramedic working together, so I’ll go on to school for that.”
As an EMT with Marlinton Fire and Rescue Squad and at Pocahontas Memorial Hospital, Spencer has assisted with landing zones and getting patients to a helicopter, which ignited the urge to take her skills to new heights.
“I like the emergency medical standpoint,” she said. “I just like the rush of emergency medicine, but I wanted to do something bigger. I get to see all these crews coming in and everything they do when we have to fly someone out. I was like, ‘that’s what I want to do.’”
Beverage is the daughter of Gray and Marsha Beverage, of Dunmore, and Spencer is the daughter of Jody and Becky Spencer, of Marlinton.