Meet Valedictorian Katie Hurt

Kathleen "Katie" Hurt is guarding her valedictorian speech very closely.

"I want it to be special," she said. "I want it to be a surprise."

Though she did show part of her draft to at least one friend – the class – Katie said she does not want elements of the speech to get out before the graduation ceremony Friday.

Hurt said she was surprised when Chatham High School Principal Darren Groh told her that she was the valedictorian for the class of 2011. The school does not release class rankings, so "it's not like everyone's fighting to be at that No. 1 spot," Hurt said. "People talk about their GPAs, but no one really knew, so it was a nice surprise."

Making a Decision

Hurt fits most people's idea of a valedictorian. She said she likes to be organized, and she writes everything down. She admits to feeling stress, but said "I don't allow that to weigh me down." She has grown used to balancing, and excelling in, a year-round sport with a demanding academic course load and also holds a part-time job.

Hurt is also decisive. She was seriously interested in only one school, Amherst College, so she decided to apply early decision and received her acceptance letter on December 14. A prized member of the girls track and cross country teams, Hurt said she will run for Amherst, despite the cold. "I won't be doing as much distance there so hopefully I'll be able to do more of my training inside," she said.

Because she knew where she would attend in mid-December, Hurt's Christmas presents last year had a noticeable theme. "I got a few winter-related gifts," she said, and mother Kathleen Hurt said, "We made sure last winter when you were buying running gear that we were buying winter weight."

New Beginnings

Hurt's twin brother, Robert, will attend Emory University in Atlanta in the fall. He, too, was accepted early decision. The two have gone to school together in Chatham since kindergarten, but Hurt does not seem hesitant to be separated from her brother. The two, she said, have different interests and like Amherst for her, Emory is "a perfect fit for him," she said.

Hurt will not be totally alone in New England. Several of her classmates, including Sabharwal, will attend schools in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC).

"I think there's five or six of us who are going to be in that conference, all pretty close to each other," she said. "With the exception of Sabhi [Sabharwal], all of us will be playing a sport so we'll be travelling around to each other."

"Sabhi can be the fan," mother Kathleen said with a smile.

Hurt also said that she has met current Amherst students on her trips to see the school, including current members of the track team, and has connected with her future classmates through an Amherst Class of 2015 group on Facebook.

Getting In

There is one piece Hurt has written that she does not mind talking about: her college application essay. She wrote about traveling to Romania during the summer of 2010 to work in an orphanage through United Planet.

"I've always sort of been interested in eastern European culture and how it's been developing since the Soviet occupation," Hurt said. Other programs she found, she said, were either in Spanish-speaking countries (Hurt does not speak Spanish) or in "politically unstable countries, somewhere where I just wouldn't want to be alone."

Hurt got a job in the Hallmark store in Hickory Square in 2009 to pay for the trip. She still works in the store now and balanced her shifts there with track practice, meets and academics for three years.

Hurt flew into Vienna and stayed with her mother's high school penpal before flying to Romania, a tactic which mother Kathleen said was so that if anything happened to her, Katie would be able to get back to Vienna easily. "Which is what we were thinking the day we got the call," Kathleen said. "She's in the Bucharest airport, and no one's there to meet her."

Hurt's plane, she said, had been delayed two hours, and the person who was picking her up left the airport without her.

"I tried the emergency number that I had [for the village], and that wasn't going through," Katie said. "Romania's not one of those countries where everyone speaks English. I went to the information desk to ask them if they could make an announcement if anyone from United Planet was there, and they wouldn't do it for me.

"I thought about getting on a plane back to Vienna," she said. "I ended up just sitting with all my luggage for about two hours. Eventually I got up to go to the bathroom and I decided to just take a loop through the people waiting, and I found the guy that I needed."

'The Adventure Continued'

Hurt's adventures continued after she arrived at the orphanage, which she soon discovered was a misnomer. "It was really more of a place for anybody who didn't belong," she said.

The priest who ran the establishment, Hurt said, took care of adults with disabilities, from learning or social disabilities to Alzheimer's, as well as pregnant unwed mothers, abandoned or orphaned children, sick animals and "anyone or anything who doesn't have a home," Hurt said. "And he wouldn't take government money, because if he did, that would mean he'd have to kick people out when they turn 18."

Hurt got sick from the water and had to drink bottles of Coca-Cola, which she said she hardly ever touches at home. "And of course," she said matter-of-factly, "I didn't have a refrigerator in my room, so it was flat, warm, three-day-old Coke."

Food was cooked in a community kitchen with "the biggest pots I've ever seen, all on campfires, and they just had a little spigot that they would fill the pots with," she said. During the second week, the community began to run out of food, so the volunteers bought their own food.

They also ran out of toilet paper and spoons in the second week. "I'm still not exactly sure how that happened," she said. 

On to Amherst

Hurt came home with a different perspective than she'd had before. "The language barrier really bothered me," she said. "I realized I wanted to study languages in college."

She is not sure yet which language, though. Hurt studied German at Chatham High, and enjoys it. "I also want to learn French, but I don't know if I want to give up on German," she said.

Like most students entering college, she also finds herself drawn to classes that she never thought of before. "Amherst has 'Law Jurisprudence and Social Thought,' and that sounds pretty interesting," she said. "It's sort of the study of how law can affect different cultures."

Hurt will travel to Amherst on August 28 and will begin running with the track team almost as soon as she arrives.

With graduation and her valedictorian speech imminent, she remains confident in her decision. "There's still nowhere else that I'd rather go to college," she said. "It seems like the school for me."