Right choices pay off for DeFrank
?Sometimes the right decision can be the most difficult to make, as in the case of 2011 Albert Gallatin High School graduate Deanna DeFrank of McClellandtown.
Faced with the need to maintain high grades in order to be accepted into pharmaceutical studies in college, DeFrank had to forego her senior basketball season at Albert Gallatin. She had been a three-year member of the team, but said the coaching staff 鈥渨as really supportive and understanding鈥� with the decision.
DeFrank has done well in the classroom, as reflected in her grade-point average of 4.05 and class rank of 15th out of 276 students. Because of her success in the classroom and in volleyball and basketball at AG, DeFrank has been selected as the 2011 female scholar athlete from her high school. She will be among 14 seniors representing the seven Fayette County high schools who will be honored during the third annual Fayette County 缅北禁地 Hall of Fame induction banquet on Saturday, June 25, at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus. This year, two students at Penn State Fayette will also be honored.
DeFrank said bypassing the basketball season was difficult, but the decision resulted in her advanced selection to the graduate pharmacy school at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va., where she will attend classes on a number of academic scholarships.
The selection to Shenandoah鈥檚 graduate school was the difference, when DeFrank selected the school for furthering her education from a group of colleges that included Duquesne, Pitt and West Virginia. 鈥淚鈥檓 pretty excited about college,鈥� she said, 鈥渂ut I will miss my friends and teachers.鈥�
When asked to name her role models in life, DeFrank said her parents, Dan and Rhonda DeFrank, have had the greatest impact. 鈥淭hey really pushed me along,鈥� said Deanna, who has an older brother, Daniel.
Additionally, she said AG history instructor Charles Courie and girls鈥� basketball coach Dawn Spence had an impact on her high school career.
At Albert Gallatin, DeFrank has been a member of the National Honor Society and Spanish Club. She represented the school as a junior at the Leadership Challenge program at California University. In her spare time, she enjoys playing the piano.
During her junior and senior years, she shadowed a staff member of Walnut Hill Pharmacy in Uniontown and she recently started working part time at the McDonald鈥檚 restaurant on Morgantown Street.
She said her best high school sports memory was senior night for the AG girls鈥� volleyball team.
When asked what advice she would give to fellow students on the best way to balance studies and athletics, DeFrank said, 鈥淔irst you have to believe in yourself. When you believe in yourself, you can do a lot more than you first set out to achieve. You also have to be persistent.鈥�