Ferraino seeks path to help others

Michelle Ferraino

EAST BERNE — When Michelle Ferraino was 10 years old, she moved from Saratoga Springs to East Berne, where she said she experienced a “culture shock.”

“The first thing I noticed was the stars, you could actually see them,” she said. “The people seemed more real, down to earth.”

But it wasn’t all positive, initially.

“When I firsted started going there, I wasn’t totally in love with the school,” she said, of the Berne-Knox-Westerlo School District. Some of the advanced classes she took at Saratoga Springs were not available at BKW, and she felt as though everything was moving slower.

Now, at age 17, she will speak before her classmates, as BKW’s valedictorian, and praise the school for its resilience, unique character, and pride.

“People knock what’s close to them until they realize how good they have it,” she said. “I haven’t been here all my life but I feel like I have been.”

Ferraino is now involved in a number of activities, both in and around the school district. She plays varsity volleyball; records the score at school basketball games; acts or does crew with the Hilltowns Players; is a class officer; and, in her spare time, she plays trumpet and sketches charcoal drawings. This summer, after becoming certified in April, she will work as a lifeguard at Woodstock Lake.

She also has been involved with a number of charitable efforts, either through the club the Student Service Society, or of her own accord. She most recently traveled to North Carolina, where she did work for a charity her aunt is a part of, Transitions GuidingLights. She also has gone on mission trips to clean up memorials, and build homes for refugees. With SSS, she has served meals for seniors and sponsored local servicemen and women through Adopt A Soldier.

Ferraino would like to pursue a career in either medicine or engineer, after being informed about a career in anesthesiology from the propane delivery man, “Turbo Tim.”

“‘Cause he talks, like, a million miles a minute, and he was like, ‘Oh, my niece is an anesthesiologist and you should do it,’” Ferraino said. It piqued her interest and so she looked into the career.

But she also would like to help veterans, perhaps by manufacturing prosthetic limbs with a combination of engineering and medical skills to help her. Many of her family and friends are veterans, and her best friend intends to enlist in the United States Air Force upon graduation.He is a year younger than she and won’t graduate yet, she said.

“I’m pretty sure the only branch of the military that hasn't been covered by my family is the Coast Guard,” she said.

For Ferraino, college will be a way to find out exactly what she wants to do. She is considering either the university of North Carolina at Chapel Hill or North Carolina Central University; she would live on her aunt’s farm where she will help care for her animals. She hopes her experience pet-sitting, which has included caring for a neighbor’s chickens as well as watching over chicks at the Altamont Fair will help her prepare.

First, she will be attending Fulton-Montgomery Community College in Johnstown this fall. The school is about an hour away, so she will be staying at the dorms there, she said.

Ferraino has earned scholarships from several different colleges, some for her academic success and some for her skills in volleyball, which she couldn’t play right away due to a shoulder injury.

“If I’m going to probably not play volley, or get back in later, what if I just start off somewhere, and transfer, and not end up with tens of thousands of dollars in debt?” she explained, of her choice to attend a community college. “Even if I go into engineering or medical school, I'm going to be in school a long time, graduating with a lot of debt.”

“I didn’t even originally apply to Fulton-Montgomery,” said Ferraino. “I literally woke up one day and was like, ‘I think I want to go to community college.’”

The decision was off the cuff, she said, but she’s happy that she’s saving money, and won’t be staying in New York State for four years.

“Some of the best decisions come off the fly, I think,” said Ferraino. She hopes whatever route she takes she will have a job where she helps others. “Who knows, maybe whatever career path I do will end up giving back to my community,” she remarked.

During the BKW graduation ceremony, Ferraino will speak of that community, embodied in the school she has attended for the last seven years, including its strength.
“In seven years, we had six different principals,” she said, adding that there also have been several new superintendents and assistants. “We’re resilient...despite the challenge of a new administration.”

She also said she will emphasize how just because someone is from a small school doesn’t mean he or she can’t do great things, but she doesn’t want to have a cliched speech or “sugar-coat it.”

“We all know there’s going to be a couple of kids, statistically, who end up in prison next year, she said. “There’s going to be that crazy thing, and then there’s going to be these kids who end up doing, like, these amazing things.”

She noted that, despite her excitement to move on, she will miss her community.

“It’s pretty bittersweet,” she said. “I’ve met a lot of great people here.”

Ferraino noted one special-education teacher, Laura Mileto, who drives an hour-and-a-half to work at BKW.

“You know a community’s special when people are willing to do that,” said Ferraino, “She’s very well-qualified; she probably could get a job anywhere else in the state, yet she chooses to continually drive an hour-and-a-half every day to Berne….just think of how powerful that is.”

Ferraino also recalled her favorite memories of the school: trying different types of jerky her anatomy teacher brought in on a whim, competing in volleyball and raising money with her team for breast cancer, and watching the whole gym go wild when BKW defeated Middleburgh.

“I think I really will miss that about Berne,” she concluded. “Like how unique it is and...the community feel.”

 

More Hilltowns News

  • As Berne-Knox-Westerlo Superintendent Timothy Mundell laid out the district’s progress toward its next budget while the district waits on lawmakers to finalize a state budget, conversation centered around one of the few things the district can control at this point — whether or not to go ahead with its annual bus purchase.

  • A driver crashed into a Rensselaerville home early Sunday morning, causing it to go up in flames. The driver and an off-duty paramedic who assisted in the rescue both suffered only minor injuries while the occupants of the home were uninjured. 

  • The two towns — one rural, one suburban — will now essentially share affordable housing credits so that Guilderland can use Knox’s typically unused credits to satisfy its large waiting list, while Knox is still able to claim them for its own residents as needed. 

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