BANGOR – Alicia Camire was 15 when she vowed to leave her partying ways behind.

“I wasn’t really headed on the right road,” she said this week. “But getting pregnant straightened me out. There was someone depending on me and I knew I had to provide a good life for her.”

Camire has been true to her word.

One of five young Bangor women who graduated Thursday from the Good Samaritan Agency’s Teen Parent Education Program, Camire, 17, plans on studying physical therapy at Husson College this fall.

Juggling a baby along with a part-time job and her classes made for long days, according to Camire, who recalled that sometimes it would be close to midnight before she was able to begin studying.

“But I never felt like giving up – that wasn’t an option for me,” said Camire, named class valedictorian.

Also graduating were Sunshine Farrow, Christa Peoples, Heather Bemis and Donna Rogers.

Addressing the crowd of friends, family and teachers during a ceremony at the agency’s headquarters Thursday, Camire hearkened back to the rough times.

“There were many obstacles, but we were able to overcome them [with help from the] dedicated teachers, day care workers who watched our kids when we were in class and social workers who always had time to listen to what was on our minds,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion.

Affiliated with Bangor Adult Education and funded in part by the United Way, Good Samaritan’s teen parent program offers classes four days a week and day care for the children of teen mothers. Since it began in 1984, the agency has graduated between 75 and 100 young mothers.

Maine, which had one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation 25 years ago, now has one of the nation’s lowest, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Fifteen- to 19-year-olds in the state had 29.8 births per 1,000 in 1999, compared with 43.5 per 1,000 in 1991, according to a recent report. Only Massachusetts, Vermont and North Dakota have lower rates.

Wearing white caps and gowns and carrying bouquets of flowers, the teen mothers looked solemn but happy as they filed slowly into the room to the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance.”

Looking down on their bright faces, commencement speaker Margaret Chase Morrill of Industry urged the young women not to be afraid to dream.

“Picture in your mind where you want to be and make plans to get there – it may take a while and it won’t be easy,” said Morrill, who in 1943 was the first woman to graduate from the University of Maine’s School of Engineering.

“Just because you’re parents, there’s no need to stop going; now you’re ready for the next step,” said Morrill, the mother of 11 children.

After the ceremony, Dick Madore, director of adult and community education, had a chance to ponder the alternative education program.

Although the classes are smaller, the curriculum is similar, if not identical, to that in a typical high school, he said.

The young women are held to rigorous academic standards, according to Madore, who was involved in the early stages of the program.

“At any high school in Maine they’d be the top students,” he said.

The teen education program is one of the few in the state that receives public money, Madore said.

“The return is worth every penny; it’s one of our better investments,” said Madore, who is adamant that teen mothers otherwise would have a tough time developing aspirations. They almost certainly would be forced to take low-paying jobs and would end up on the welfare rolls.

“They wouldn’t see a way out,” said Madore.

Returning to high school after becoming parents would have been impossible, some of the graduates said earlier that morning.

Grappling with different issues than other teens, the young mothers wouldn’t have found the support that they needed.

Other teen-agers “don’t understand, they don’t have kids,” said Peoples, 19, mother of 19-month-old Kierra.

“It’s hard. You can’t be a teen-ager like you want to be,” said Peoples, who hopes to attend Beal College.

Everything is different when you’re a parent, according to the 17-year-old Bemis, mother of 1-year-old Michaela.

“We have a lot more responsibility than those kids have – it’s better to be here,” said Bemis, who wants to become an X-ray technician.

Providence played a hand in the way Bemis learned about the teen parent program.

When she and her boyfriend, Joe Costello, told Costello’s mother that they were expecting a baby, Denise Costello knew just what to say.

“You need to go to Good Samaritan,” said Denise Costello, who had been the first director of the program from 1983 to 1988.

After watching Bemis graduate Thursday, Joe Costello didn’t skimp on praise. “She did a great job,” said the young man, who graduated from Bangor High School last year when his daughter was newly born.

“Heather had a lot more to face,” said Joe, acknowledging the difficulties of going to school while parenting a very young child.

But the couple makes it through by sharing chores and child care even-steven. Because Joe is in the picture, they receive almost no government help, Denise Costello said proudly.

The two may decide to marry. “There’s time for that later,” Denise Costello said.

Holding his little granddaughter, Lou Colburn, Peoples’ father, said after the ceremony that he wasn’t surprised that the young woman stuck with the program.

“She knows how important getting an education is,” he said.

But it was a long row to hoe, according to Peoples’ mother, Linda. “Many times we wondered if this day would come,” she said, as the family came together in a group hug.

Colburn won’t forget how Good Samaritan influenced his daughter’s life. Now when he donates to the United Way, he targets the money directly to the agency, he said.

Mary Ellen Camire, Alicia’s mother, recalled the way things used to be. “When I was in high school, if a girl got pregnant that was the end of her life.”

But things ended up fine for Alicia, thanks to Good Samaritan, Mary Ellen Camire said. “She’s turned her life around, she’s become a better person.”