Key Club term changes life of Hermon student

HERMON – High school senior Katie Vashon learned a lot about family during the past year.

But when she talks about family, the Hermon High School student’s usually not referring to her parents, Carmen and Jim, or her two older brothers. The family the 17-year-old spent much of the past year with is her Kiwanis family.

Last month, Vashon completed her term as governor of the several hundred Key Clubs in New England. On April 7, Rachel Paleafei of Presque Isle was elected to succeed her at the regional convention in Springfield, Mass., attended by 1,200 students.

Key Club is an international high school service organization sponsored by Kiwanis International. There are Builders Clubs in a few middle schools in Maine, and Circle K groups in colleges across the country. The Bangor Breakfast Kiwanis Club sponsors the Key Club at Hermon High School.

“Key Club has changed my life and affected my high school career, and I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Vashon said in a speech at the District Kiwanis Convention in Cape Cod earlier this year.

Vashon was the first Key Clubber since the early 1980s from the northern half of Maine to be elected governor in the region, and the first Maine girl to hold the position. She said in a recent interview that she was proud of how communication within the Kiwanis family had improved under her leadership.

“I know that too many times teen-agers get looked upon as those ‘crazy kids’ always in the wrong and causing trouble,” she said in her speech. “And too many times those few instances can overshadow the 7,441 members of the New England District of Key Clubs that have worked to improve the lives of children with Iodine Deficiency Disorder, and the development of the Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Institute and Camp Sunshine in Casco [Kiwanis-sponsored programs].”

During her term, New England Key Clubs raised $81,000 and surpassed their original goal by $17,000. Membership increased by 175 students and a half-dozen new clubs, she said.

Vashon decided in middle school that she wanted to join Key Club when she entered Hermon High School as a freshman. One of her best friends, Erin Lucey, joined too. Lucey and Paleafei served as lieutenant governors under Vashon.

Chris Green, Key Club adviser and a teacher at Hermon High School, said that the speaking and traveling Vashon had to do as governor had a positive impact on the teen-ager.

“She’s no longer shy and no longer intimidated by adults,” said Green. “She’s been able to do everything the district administration asked her to do and maintain her grades. … The governorship hasn’t gone to her head either. The general members still liked her as much at the end of her term as they did at the beginning. I’ve seen other kids where it’s gone to their heads and they aren’t the same at the end as they were at the beginning.”

During the past year, Vashon traveled extensively throughout New England and to national meetings and training sessions in Indianapolis and Washington, D.C. Earlier this month, she and Green went to Bermuda, which is part of the New England district, to help start a new club there.

Vashon encouraged students and administrators to start a Key Club there and met with local Kiwanians to explain how they could interact with high school students to give them the opportunity to serve their community.

Looking back on her experience, Vashon said that the most challenging thing about being governor was the amount of time it took.

“It consumed a lot of time and sometimes got in the way of school work,” she confessed. “I spent at least two hours, often more, a day either on the phone, responding to e-mails or planning conventions and events. But, I think I grew a lot this year as a person, giving everything I had to every project. My one regret is that the year wasn’t longer.”

She urged her successor to try to finish her year “without regrets because it flies by so fast.”

Paleafei said that she’d learned a lot from Vashon over the past year.

“She kept everything organized,” observed the 17-year-old junior at Presque Isle High School. “We had a lot of discussions on what we should do for Key Clubs in the district and if it would work out. She’s always been there if I have a question. She had a lot of good ideas and from her I’ve learned what worked and didn’t so I can incorporate that into the upcoming year.”

Vashon said that her experience in Key Club was instrumental in her choice of a college and career. Next fall, she will attend Quinnipiac University, in Hamden, Conn. She plans on majoring in mass communications or public relations, and hopes to work for a service-oriented non-profit organization after graduation.

The only drawback to the school, she said, is that it has no Circle K Club, the college equivalent of Key Club. Vashon, however, already has discussed possible sponsorship with the local Kiwanis Club in case she decides to start one on campus.

The Kiwanis family is almost as important to Vashon and who she is as her parents and brothers have been. She plans to keep in close contact with both as she heads off to college this fall.