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MARIETTA - When she arrives in Columbus to begin her studies at The Ohio State University, Molly Graham will focus her time and energy on two passions in her life.
One is working with children as a pediatric sonographer and the other will be in cheerleading competition, continuing the activity that has been part of her life for the past six years.
She is the daughter of Alecia and Shawn Graham of Marietta.
For the past five years, Graham is a recipient of the Rotary Club Foundation Scholarship for her volunteer work with Safetytown, a program that teaches children about topics ranging from traffic and pedestrian safety to fire prevention and stranger awareness.
"I was a volunteer for Safetytown for five years," she said. "I got started with that because I have an older sister who was also a volunteer for Safetytown, and I watched her do it for a few years, and I joined her while I was in middle school and continued to do it through high-school as well.”
Graham said safety lessons cover a number of topics.
"We do things like memorizing their phone numbers or poisons safety and traffic safety," she said. "We also have a police officer come to visit."
Graham also was involved in a number of volunteer activities. At Marietta High School, where she was a cheerleader, she is part of a monthly community service event.
"We adopted a part of a highway," she said. "Three to four times a year we cleaned up a highway; we donated food to our local food pantry a couple of times. We also did performances for our local county home as well.”
She also was a cheerleader at Marietta Middle School.
In addition to cheerleading, Graham is active in Student Council, serving as class vice president last year, and was a member of the National Honor Society. She also was a member of the Junior National Honor Society in middle school.
As a student, Graham said her best school subject was math.
This fall Graham plans to attend Ohio State and major in health sciences.
"I am planning on being in their sonography program," she said.
Sonography is a type of ultrasound, Graham said.
Graham said she decided on Ohio State after a visit to the campus. Ohio State has one of Ohio's four sonography programs.
"With only four programs that knocked down my options pretty quickly," she said. "I toured all the schools and I pretty quickly had it down to University of Findlay and Ohio State"
While in high school, she took several classes at Washington State College of Ohio, which will probably allow her to start at Ohio State as a sophomore.
"I knocked a year off college with those classes," she said.
Graham first considered a future career in nursing.
"But I’m not a big fan of needles or anything like that, so I looked at other areas and sonography is what I came across," she said.
Graham said her work with the Safetytown program drew her toward helping children.
"I really enjoyed that, working with it for five years," she said. "So I hope to work with pediatrics as well."
Graham said the pediatric sonography field would have her working in a children’s ward of a hospital or a children’s hospital.
There are two fields in sonography.
"But I haven’t decided which one I’ll do yet," Graham said. "I could either go into cardio, which deals with the heart, or I could do general. That is more like obstetrics or any general scanning because as a younger child I had some procedures done and I remember going to Nationwide Children’s Hospital and feeling very comfortable."
Graham said she is also looking forward to what the school has to offer outside the classroom.
"I got my football game package, and I'm really excited about that" she said, adding she is planning to continue her cheerleading at the university.
"I tried out for the competition cheerleading team," she said. "I just got on that so I'm very excited about that."
Graham said competition cheerleading team members are not the cheerleaders seen at football or basketball games. While many sideline cheer teams in high school and college have male members, the competition cheering teams are different, she said.
"It's all girls," she said.
"The cheerleaders at the football and basketball games are a different group," she said. "We will represent Ohio State at cheer competitions."
Graham said gymnastics she took in grade school and being a member of a competition team at Marietta High School helped her make the team at OSU. In high school, she did sideline cheering in addition to the competition.
Contact Jeffrey Saulton at jsaulton@newsandsentinel.com