- Megan McCurry
- Pace Academy, graduate
Megan McCurry has been singing just about since she was able to talk.
Her love of music led to the theater. Megan has taken part in 15 plays and taken the lead role in five of them. Last fall, she played Maria in Pace Academy’s production of “West Side Story.”
“I hope to continue to be in musicals and continue to sing. I love performing,” Megan said.
Megan has been praised for her theatrical talent with over 15 awards in this area over her high school career. She has the knack to adapt when a role calls for it — she had to learn to roller skate and perform for her part in Xanadu. “I am very proud of my achievements in the arts and the roles I have played,” Megan said. “I will never forget how much fun I had in Pace Theatre!”
One of her teachers, Beth Barrow-Titus, describes Megan as one of the “most gifted female singers I have encountered over my course of 42 years of teaching.”
But Megan is engaged in plenty of offstage activities, too.
She volunteers with the Homeless Pets Foundation each weekend, she said. She combined this program with Pace’s Service Learning Program, through which students to help out with animals and earn service hours. “I do this because I have loved animals my entire life,” she said.
In the peer-tutoring program at Pace, Megan helps younger students with Spanish and physics. And as secretary of Pace’s student advisory group, Megan helps students deal with social and health issues by promoting healthy eating, learning how to cope with stress, and fighting self-harm.
She also is involved in Pace’s literary magazine, The Knight Gallery. Megan is the assistant editor of the magazine. Students submit their literary work to be reviewed and, if accepted, published in the magazine. “The variety of pieces we see is very exciting,” Megan said, “and it was always fun to have a break from my homework or everyday life just to read poems and prose.”
In the classroom, Megan especially enjoys science and math courses. She lists biology, statistics, calculus and chemistry among her favorites, but says she enjoys her chorus class, too.
“Megan is an extremely diligent worker in every arena,” Barrow-Titus said. “The faculty and her peers respect her, and she possesses a passion for the sciences. She is an amazing young woman!”
What’s Next:
Next fall, Megan will be attending Rice University to major in biochemistry and cell biology. She hopes to study and make a difference in microbiological research. She also says she would love to keep singing and performing.
This summer Megan will be volunteering at the Boulis Lab at Emory University, gaining some experience before college. This lab focuses on the research of gene therapy and stem cells.
This article was reported and written by Emma McCabe, a student at Riverwood International Charter High School.