RUMFORD — Mountain Valley High School’s top two academic students in the Class of 2018 said they are proud of their school and proud to be Falcons.

“My advice for someone coming into Mountain Valley as a freshman would be to be passionate about your school,” Salutatorian Brooke Carver said. New high school students should try to find out what they are passionate about and “carry not only self-confidence but school confidence.”

Valedictorian Abbie Blauvelt agreed, saying, “I think our school does a great job helping every one of us here find their own success. Whether it’s sending kids that like to work with tools and cars to Region 9 School of Applied Technology or helping kids who want to take the advanced classes study for the AP exams and finding success in athletics, or helping the new student find the sports team that just fits them, I think that Mountain Valley is really good at inclusion and helps everyone hold up that Falcon pride.”

Blauvelt noted that the school and community “really come together when they need to.”

“Like we had quite a few tragedies and a girl who graduated from here a few years ago was recently diagnosed with a rare illness and needs a bone marrow transplant,” she said. “Our community and our school really came together and held fundraisers for her. There’s a lot of communities that I don’t think you would see come together like that to support people.”

Blauvelt’s personal passion and interests are strong for the All-Star cheering team she’s been a part of throughout her high school years; for gymnastics; and for raising funds for cancer research.

She was diagnosed with leukemia in March 2007 and went into remission in July 2009. This will be the first year since she was 9 years old that she isn’t part of a Relay For Life team raising money for cancer victims, because of a lack of community participation. She has been captain of her Relay For Life team since fifth grade, and she and her mother and the team raised thousands of dollars for cancer research, she said.

Her passion for cheering and being part of an All-Star team is rooted in her love for gymnastics, which she has participated in her “whole life” with her mother as her coach.

“I love cheering so much. I’ve gone to competitions in Nashville, Dallas, Myrtle Beach, all over and it’s just like a lot of fun to travel with my team. And on my All-Star team, we travel the country and we’ve won a few national titles. I was on the high school team all four years and we won the conference championship last year, which was really exciting,” she said.

Carver said she’s “pretty passionate about athletics and mathematics. My dad has always pushed me to be the best in all of my sports and in school. Growing up I played all my sports with him and he’s taught me a lot.”

Her love for the outdoors and for competition have always been part of her drive to excel in sports. And because of “some amazing high school athletic coaches and teammates,” she likes competing for MVHS and it gives her a lot of Falcon pride, she said. She was captain of the girls’ soccer and tennis teams as a junior and senior, and captain of the girls’ basketball team as a senior.

Math has always come easily to Carver since she was part of the Gifted and Talented program in elementary school, she said. “I’ve always seen (math) as kind of a game and it’s always been a puzzle to me. I just find it so interesting to solve equations.

“This year my calculus teacher, Mr. Pelletier, made it so fun to learn and interesting, and that drove me to be a mathematician,” she said.

This fall, Carver plans to go to Bentley University in Massachusetts where she will major in accounting and marketing. “I’m going to school for five years so I’ll graduate with my master’s degree and my goal is to work for a corporation and do all their finances,” she said.

Her parents are Christopher and Deborah Carver. “My dad’s always fueled my competitive side and taught me to win and to be a leader at the same time, and my mom really taught me how to be compassionate and the importance of being a nice person. Both of them taught me how important it is to succeed in school and as a leader,” she said.

Blauvelt will attend Boston College this fall with a major in biology on the pre-med track to become a pediatric oncologist. She will also be on the cheerleading team at the college.

Her mother and stepfather are Tracy and David Daigle. Her father is Aseidas Blauvelt.

“My mom has always been my coach in gymnastics so she’s pushed me really hard through gymnastics; and in school she was always pushing me to do the best I can,” Blauvelt said.

Mountain Valley High School’s graduation is at 6 p.m. June 7 at the school in Rumford.

mhutchinson@sunmediagroup.net

Abbie Blauvelt, left, and Brooke Carter are valedictorian and salutatorian, respectively, of the Class of 2018 at Mountain Valley High School in Rumford. (Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times)