Class of 2010: Zaske plans to attend college in Wisconsin

Editor’s Note: This is the final story in a four-part series on Worthington High School seniors.

WORTHINGTON — High school students are often inundated with mailings from colleges, all eager to recruit the soon-to-be graduates to their campuses.

Worthington senior Ann Zaske received many such letters, and while most were quickly discarded, one caught her eye.

“I am going to Carthage College in Kenosha, Wis.,” pronounced Ann, “and I’m going to study graphic design. The way I found out about Carthage was a letter in the mail, so those mailings do work.”

There were several things that attracted Ann to Carthage. First of all, there was the location, right along the shore of Lake Michigan.

“The campus overlooks the lake,” described Ann. “It’s really pretty, a great setting for a designer.”

Carthage is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, and since her dad is an ELCA pastor at American Lutheran Church in Worthington — her parents are Mike and Nancy Zaske of Worthington — she received “a ton of scholarships just for being Lutheran.”

But the real appeal was Carthage’s degree offerings.

“When I was thinking about colleges, I wanted to do graphic design, and not many schools have a specific graphic design major,” she explained. “For a while it was between the University of Minnesota and Carthage.”

But Carthage eventually won out, and Ann figures it will be convenient for her parents to visit both her and brother Tim, a junior at Purdue University in Indiana.

“It’s kind of on the way to Purdue,” she said. “And maybe Tim and I can meet up in Chicago, although I doubt that will happen.”

Ann settled on graphic design as a way to incorporate a couple of her interests.

“I like art, and for a while I was considering doing something in music,” she explained. “I’d like to have music in my life, but I don’t know if I want to be a professional musician for the rest of my life. Maybe I can design album covers.

“I like math, and I like art, and it came down to — how can I combine those?” she continued. “Graphic design was the closest thing I could think of, combining computers and art.”

Although she’s won’t pursue it as a career, music has been a big part of Ann’s high school experience. She has been involved in both band and choir throughout school, as well as various musical ensembles.

“I joined jazz band and play the triangle, bongos and flute in that,” she related about one of her musical endeavors. “I have a triangle solo in one of the songs, so I’m pretty excited about that.”

Ann’s main instrument is the flute, and she has served as section leader in band for two years. One of the highlights of her band experiences was marching in the Thanksgiving Day parade in Chicago last year.

“I like marching band, although I’m always glad when it’s over,” she said. “You don’t have to give up your Saturdays anymore to go out in either 50-degree weather or 80-degree weather in wool uniforms.”

In choir, Ann sings soprano, and she was honored to receive the annual Choral Directors Award, voted on by her peers, at a recent concert. She also utilized her talents during the school musical production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” although they were literally masked.

“I was Grandma Tzeitel,” she said about a character that appears in a dream, “so I got to wear a giant head. It was fun, but hard to see out.

“Musical is fun,” she continued. “All the bonding between people is cool, and it’s fun to see some of the people who don’t usually do musical stuff say, ‘Hey, I think I’ll try musical,’ and it turns out awesome.”

During her high school career, Ann has tried out a number of activities and clubs. She’s a member of the Art-Optimist-Kiwanis (AOK) Club, which is involved in community service events including the upcoming American Cancer Society Relay for Life and the kids’ art activities at the Worthington Windsurfing Regatta and Unvarnished Music Festival.

Ann was in cheerleading as a freshman, dance team as a junior and went out for tennis the last two years. She’s also involved in Students Against Destructive Decisions, served three years on student council and was inducted into the National Honor Society.

“I’m the Drama Club president this year,” she noted. “We get together and talk about the theater and go see productions like the fall play and musical together. I’ve been in it all four years.”

Speech is another activity that kept Ann’s attention throughout her tenure at WHS.

“I do humor,” she said, “because I’m so hilarious. I’m really bad at extemporaneous, but I’m good when the script is all written out, which is what humor is. This year, my speech was about a girl helping her mom with Internet things like e-mail and eBay. It was pretty funny, if I do say so myself. I made it to sections this year — final round.”

Academically, Ann ended up with some tougher classes in her final quarter schedule, which includes physics, advanced placement calculus and American government in addition to band and choir. She’s had to do some serious studying, although in her second-to-last week of classes, she spent one day performing physics experiments at Valleyfair amusement park and on another day conducted a calculus experiment by launching water balloons.

“Valleyfair has Physics Day for a bunch of high schools,” she explained about the amusement park trip. “We get to go there and do experiments on the rides.”

Although the experiments aren’t “super complicated,” they give students a way to apply some of the concepts they’ve learned.

“It was awful,” Ann said sarcastically about the day away from school. “We had to do a couple of experiments, then go on some rides.”

But the fun was short-lived, as Ann had to return to take an “intense” calculus test and work on an end-of-year paper.

“I did choose to put harder classes toward the end of the year,” she said. “Senioritis has been hitting me hard.”

Still, Ann and her friends manage to even make their study sessions fun.

“Me and two of my friends get together and have math parties,” she said. “We’ll talk about nothing for an hour, do four problems, then go back to talking. It’s gotten to be more lax and less math.”

Last night, Ann walked across the stage in the Worthington High School gymnasium and received her diploma. She is now officially a high school graduate. There’s no more need for math parties, although she anticipates getting together with her friends throughout the summer months to play sand volleyball or just to hang out.

“I’m always late to things,” she reflected about how her friends would describe her, “not super late, but a couple of minutes. I think they would think I’m funny — otherwise the jokes I make are for nothing. I’m pretty laidback about most things, which is probably why I’m usually late. I would say I’m pretty loyal.”

The summer months will also be filled up with hours working at Subway — “I’m a sandwich artist,” described Ann about her employment — catching up on her TV watching and preparing for the college adventure ahead.

“I can’t wait,” she said, the excitement shining in her eyes.

Tags: worthington high school class of 2010, lifestyle, people, zaske