19 min read

Students across the state are preparing this month to leave high school and make their impact on the world.

The 12 seniors highlighted in this year’s Graduates to Watch already are making a difference.

From designing an action team to addressing homophobic behaviors in school, to giving multilingual tours to ease the transition for immigrant students or translating for the war effort in Ukraine, the students featured here haven’t let their youth hold them back from improving the lives of others.

Each year we select a group of exceptional graduating seniors, nominated by their schools, to profile as they embark on a critical life transition. This year, we’ve expanded the project to include students from all the areas we cover at the Maine Trust for Local News, from Kittery to Skowhegan, and brought together a team of reporters from across our publications to tell their stories.

These 12 are just a sample of the outstanding members of Maine’s class of 2026, and represent a fraction of those nominated by schools.

They vary widely in their accomplishments and career ambitions; they’re aspiring doctors, politicians, firefighters, engineers, immigration attorneys, social workers and ornithologists. Some were born and raised in Maine, while others came from as far away as Angola to graduate from high schools here.

We hope you enjoy learning about them. Click the name below to jump to their story.

Rowan Berounsky-Porter

Marshwood High School

(Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)

Rowan Berounsky-Porter wasn’t always the best student.

A self-described “rascal” who struggled to complete assignments on time, his ADHD often affected his focus in school.

During his junior year, the 17-year-old from South Berwick started taking a college-level course in firefighting at Sanford Regional Technical Center. Something shifted in him.

“I didn’t feel good about who I was for a long time, and then I started doing things for other people, and I realized that life is a lot more than what we feel inside,” he said. “If you can … do things like save somebody’s life in a fire, that’s a gift, to be able to do, for yourself and for somebody else.”

Now, firefighting is the only career path he can imagine.

Berounsky-Porter went on to receive his Firefighter I and II certifications from the technical center. He followed that up with an Emergency Medical Technician course, was one of the center’s 2026 nominees for Student of the Year, and began training with the York Village Fire Department’s explorer program.

After graduation, he will start an intensive live-in firefighting program at Southern Maine Community College, where he’ll reside full time at a Gorham fire station, responding to emergency calls and maintaining equipment in exchange for free room and board.

Berounsky-Porter said he’s drawn to high-stakes, adrenaline-pumping activities, like emergency response, and his side job throwing hay bales for local farms.

“When you’re doing it, you’re like ‘Ugh, this sucks,'” he said. “And then afterward, you’re like, ‘I want to do that 100 more times, all the time.'”

But it’s mostly the calling to help others through firefighting that motivates him now. He can focus better. He hasn’t gotten any grade lower than a B since he began training.

After the two-year program at SMCC, Berounsky-Porter plans to return to Sanford, where his mentors have inspired him to serve the community as a firefighter.

–Riley Board, Staff Writer

Emma Eukitis

Thornton Academy

(Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)

Emma Eukitis loves different birds for different reasons.

African gray parrots because of their capacity for speech and intelligence. Hummingbirds for their color variations and aerodynamic flight.

As a child, she watched goldfinches snack from a suction-cupped kitchen window bird feeder, kept parakeets as pets and has loved raptors ever since she read a memoir about a biologist’s relationship with an injured baby barn owl.

For the last couple of years, her fascination has turned to falcons.

Eukitis has been training with a master falconer to hunt with peregrines, gyrfalcons and red-tailed hawks. Her interest in falconry began with a demonstration in a Maine fish and wildlife class at Thornton, but her love of birds began much earlier, in the forest and fields on her family’s property in Dayton where she has lived her whole life.

“I started watching them, I started looking at them,” she said. “I got more curious, I asked more questions.”

Eukitis’s parents even call her “bird,” an homage to both her passion for feathered friends, and her skill at singing.

A prolific musical theater and opera performer, she has done community shows at her high school and at Lyric Music Theater in South Portland and professional shows at Ogunquit Playhouse and with Opera Maine. She’s had roles in “Annie,” “Mean Girls” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which was her favorite.

“Shakespeare writes his scripts for the emotions that he wants the actors to portray,” she said. “It’s very easy to get into the mind of the character when doing Shakespeare.”

During summers, Eukitis took pre-college courses in neuroscience and evolution through Harvard and Cornell. She racked up early college courses through the University of Maine System, and said her school’s science department has played an integral role in her life and path to becoming an ornithologist.

Eukitis will attend Yale University in Connecticut in the fall to double major in ecology and evolutionary biology and neuroscience, with the goal of studying animal behavior. She also hopes to one day earn a falconry license.

“Anything with birds would make me happy.”

–Riley Board, Staff Writer

Jack Fitzpatrick

Skowhegan Area High School

(Rich Abrahamson/Staff Photographer)

Jack Fitzpatrick initially viewed helping the local elderly couple as a quick way to make some cash.

His guidance counselor received an email in December saying Jane and Dave Hovey needed assistance at their home and passed along the opportunity to Fitzpatrick.

The teen responded quickly. Ever since he got his driver’s license, he’s been helping town residents with mowing and other errands.

“Little did I know, it would turn into a really long-term thing,” Fitzpatrick said, “Which I’m very thankful for.”

His assistance grew beyond regular chores. When Dave Hovey got sick this winter, Fitzpatrick frequently drove Jane to the hospital to visit him. 

“I went over like almost every night, just to talk with her and keep her company because she’s not used to being alone in her house,” he said. “You could just tell her demeanor was way down. I really wanted to try to make a change for her.”

Word got around. Fitzpatrick said about 15 people in town now have his number. The mowing he did for one older man, who died recently, evolved into chats about sports and regular cribbage games.

Much of it he does for pay. He’s a teenager who wants to make some money, after all. But sometimes he simply helps others.

“My mindset has really changed in the last few months,” he said.

A student in the Somerset Career and Technical Center’s outdoor leadership program, and an avid hunter and fisherman, Fitzpatrick had considered becoming a game warden. Now, he plans to attend a two-year program at Kennebec Valley Community College in Fairfield to be an electrician (his uncle’s profession) and has already taken two college-level math classes.

Fitzpatrick is also a second baseman on the baseball diamond, point guard on the basketball court and midfielder on the soccer field.

He admits it’s tough to balance his busy schedule, but he’s not likely to stop helping his neighbors.

– Jake Freudberg, Staff Writer

Henry Gingras

Gardiner Area High School

(Joe Phelan/Staff Photographer)

Henry Gingras is as comfortable on stage and in the orchestra pit is he is on the track or football field.

He started playing violin when he was just 6 years old. He has since switched to the viola, and his love for playing music and performing has only grown over the years.  

Gingras plays in the Kennebec Valley Symphony Youth Orchestra, and has lessons with his personal teacher once a week.

On top of that, he competes in the 110-meter and 300-meter hurdles on his school’s track team, and plays wide receiver and cornerback on the football team.

In football, he won the Great American Rivalry Scholar Award, which is a national award given to players who have the highest GPA in select high-stake rival games. 

“In my own mind (orchestra and sports) are separate worlds and I keep it that way,” he said. “It’s nice to have the contrast to go from high intensity to sometimes more high-intensity mentally. I think it’s just helped me be more well-rounded.”

Music, next to sports, is a large part of Gingras’ life. He led Gardiner’s musicals for the four years he was a student there, most recently as the starring role in “Bye Bye Birdie.”

Gingras credits his mother, Lori, for helping him maintain his schedule and keeping him balanced. He won’t stray too far from home next year, as he plans to attend Bowdoin College in Brunswick.

He’s thinking of studying biology with the long-term goal to become a pediatric physician to help children in the community. Already, he volunteers at MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta every weekend, assisting and talking with patients. He previously helped out at a pediatric private practice in Brunswick, which solidified his aspirations of becoming a doctor.

He also plans to join the college’s orchestra and audition for musicals.

And maybe, he’ll find himself on the field again by joining the ultimate frisbee team. But he’s most excited to make connections with professors, and discover opportunities that will shape his career path.

– Emily Duggan, Staff Writer

Rekha Goonesekere

Cony High School

(Joe Phelan/Staff Photographer)

Rekha Goonesekere scratched down her first campaign speech between concessions orders, and it worked.

Goonesekere’s classmates elected her at the end of her sophomore year as the student member on the Augusta Board of Education. Her pitch was simple: She would make a solid representative as a lifelong Augusta resident who works two jobs and participates in three music programs, three sports and every club imaginable.

Now a senior and headed to Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs this fall, Goonesekere said being on the school board has been one of the most gratifying, confidence-boosting experiences of her time at Cony — even with budget cuts, public comment fights and debates over cellphone policy.

She’s learned to maintain poise. Pick her spots.

“I’m really big on empathy and just trying to understand the core of where all these people are coming from,” Goonesekere said. “But I think also my philosophy is: I really want us to stay focused on what is productive and what truly matters in the moment.”

Representing peers and encouraging others to participate in board meetings spurred her on to take other leadership positions at Cony and outside of school, she said.

And take on more leadership positions she did. President of National Honor Society. Vice President of Key Club. Captain of the tennis team. Executive committee member for Chizzle Wizzle (a popular student variety show). Kennebec County Youth Advisory Board. Encouraging teens to participate in politics through Democracy Maine. All between two food service jobs.

During her junior year, she was so involved that she barely played with her dogs, Ally and Momo. She didn’t even realize how hard she was pushing herself.

It was her older sister, Ayanna, a 2023 Cony graduate and current Princeton engineering student, who finally pointed out the thread that seemed to pull Goonesekere’s busy life: politics. Maybe that’s what she should plan to major in, Ayanna told her.

“I was like, ‘You’re right,'” she said. “‘Maybe I actually do have a reason that I’m doing all these things.'”

– Ethan Horton, Staff Writer

Angela Kabisa

South Portland High School

(Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)

When Angela Kabisa gives tours to new students, she can shift seamlessly from French to Portuguese to Lingala to English.

Being the new kid is hard, she said, and harder still when there is a language barrier.

Kabisa knows this well. That was her a decade ago when she moved to Maine from the central African country of Angola.

“No one was really talking to me,” she said. “I felt kind of isolated.” 

Now, she’s often the first to welcome the new kids through her participation in Black Student Union and student government. She’s helped organize school-wide culture day celebrations since eighth grade, which include opportunities for new Mainers to share stories and food from their home countries. 

“Many incoming students didn’t feel as though their classmates really understood where they came from,” she said. “It helps build a lot of understanding.”

Kabisa also got a taste of local government on South Portland’s school board as the student representative.

In the fall, she will attend Bowdoin College in Brunswick to study government and legal studies with the goal of becoming an immigration attorney. 

Her dream is to work with the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine. 

“I want to try to fight the system that’s unjust,” she said. 

That is something personal to her, too.

Only three members of Kabisa’s family of four came to the United States. It’s been 10 years since she’s seen her brother, who is 16 years older, because he wasn’t allowed to immigrate with the rest of them. She was too young at the time to understand why. Now, she wants to keep learning how to advocate on behalf of immigrants and navigate the legal system.

Kabisa said she’s excited to meet new people in college — her high school friends describe her as a funny and genuine people person — and may even introduce them to her favorite food, fried plantains, a staple in Angola, ideally paired with chicken and her mother’s cabbage salad.

– Dana Richie, Staff Writer

Katherine Meyers

Traip Academy

(Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer)

Katherine Meyers was a scout at heart, even before girls could join. 

Her younger brother was in Cub Scouts and Meyers tagged along wherever she could. In meetings and activities, she was enraptured by everything Scouts had to offer. When Boy Scouts opened its doors to girls in 2019, she signed up immediately. 

Born and raised in Kittery, the 18-year-old spends her time finding balance between her passions, which range from snowboarding to ballet, but scouting has given her a sense of purpose and a chance to lead.

Meyers’ interests have allowed for opportunities to push herself, like she did on a nine-day backpacking trip through the Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, one of her favorite memories.

Meyers said alongside her extracurriculars, her studies have led her to working with young kids through the Early Childhood Development Program at the Sanford Regional Technical Center. That work with the younger generation inspired her to attend the University of Vermont where she’ll pursue a master’s degree in social work.

Her favorite part of working with children is getting to watch them grow.

“Obviously, we change and we grow every year, but the amount that kids grow in just a couple of months as human beings is so cool to watch and to be a part of,” Meyers said.

Scouting was also a huge inspiration for her desire to work with children, especially the time spent working at Griswold Scout Reservation, an overnight scouts camp in Gilmanton, New Hampshire.

Meyers said over the years, Scouting America has provided her “a safe place to fail.”

“That’s something I really took out of it,” she said. “That there’s others around you to help kind of pick you back up. That’s how you grow and become better.”

– Abigail Driscoll, Staff Writer

Natalie Morgenbesser

Scarborough High School

(Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer)

Natalie Morgenbesser watches the video of her 8-year-old self dressed in overall shorts with a sparkly red unitard underneath and a bright red clown nose. At the end, as she finishes juggling the three balls, her look of concentration transforms into a proud smile.

Almost a decade later, Morgenbesser still remembers the feeling of accomplishment she felt when she first learned to juggle. Now, she can juggle, unicycle, clown, set up circus tents and do acrobatics and trapeze acts — sometimes more than one at the same time — and has also amassed an impressive collection of other hobbies.

Morgenbesser performs with both Gym Dandies, the largest continuously operating children’s circus in the country, and Circus Smirkus, a traveling youth circus based in Vermont. 

In her car, she always has a few unicycles, juggling clubs and other props.

“I’m always ready,” she said. 

 But her circus abilities are only one out of a kaleidoscope of hobbies. 

“My mom calls me her opt-in child because I always say ‘yes’ to things,” she said. 

That’s also true in school, where Morgenbesser has juggled multiple club leadership roles. As president of the Reducing Sexism and Violence Program, she worked to make Title IX reporting easier and more accessible for students at her school after she noticed others struggling to navigate the system. Title IX is a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education.

The club met regularly with the Title IX coordinator, made a convenient website with resources and policies, and created videos about teacher-student boundaries, which were shown in other schools.

Morgenbesser plans to pursue engineering, which she said is the intersection of two of her passions: art and math. One reason she has always loved juggling is the mathematical patterns underpinning it. She also loves fiber arts, especially knitting and crochet, and she even made her own dresses for prom and her senior photos, the later of which won a Scholastic Art Award. 

In the fall, she will attend the University of California, Berkeley College of Environmental Design, which is located in an area with plenty of good circuses. She hopes to keep performing.

– Salomé Cloteaux, Staff Writer

Marat Nazarchuk

North Yarmouth Academy

(Derek Davis/Staff Photographer)

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, sparking a war that has yet to end, Marat Nazarchuk’s mother knew she needed to get him far away from their home in Kyiv.

She connected with a distant relative in Washington, D.C. whose daughter attended school with the niece of Eliot Grady, language department chair at North Yarmouth Academy. Grady lives on Peaks Island and has hosted foreign students before. When she heard of Nazarchuk’s plight, she agreed to host him and secured a scholarship for him to attend NYA.

Suitcase in hand, the teen arrived in Maine with almost no English language skills.

During his freshman year, he used Google Translate to communicate, but he steadily increased his vocabulary and forged connections with teachers and classmates. He joined the tennis team and theater productions and played bass in a school band. He thrived in the classroom, earning a math award as a junior that is typically given to seniors.

“I was trying to do my best, to say something. And now I just can finally be myself,” Nazarchuk said.

All the while, he constantly worried about his father, who fought in the war for two years until he was injured by shrapnel from a landmine.

“He told me so many stories where he was on the edge of death,” Nazarchuk said.

Despite harrowing tales from home, the teenager visited Ukraine numerous times throughout high school and used his newly acquired English to translate medical devices for the war effort and gave away his books to soldiers.

Nazarchuk said many people in Maine can’t comprehend why he returns to a dangerous place.

“No matter what’s going on in your home, it’s home,” he explained.

Nazarchuk said he won’t forget his new home of Maine — how green it is in summer, how cold it gets in winter, and how delicious lobster is. 

In the fall, he’ll attend Ohio Wesleyan University to study chemistry or math. But his long-term goal is to return to Ukraine permanently. He hopes the war will be over by then, and he can help rebuild his country.

– Sophie Burchell, Staff Writer

David Tit

Portland High School

(Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)

David Tit began saving for college in kindergarten.

He put cash from birthdays and holidays into a monkey-shaped piggy bank, and when it overflowed, his mom would put it into an account.

The eldest son of Cambodian immigrants, Tit said from a young age he was often looking to the future — perhaps too much.

The 18-year-old will graduate this spring ranked eighth in a class of 227 and attend Columbia University in the fall to study engineering. But, there was a time early in his high school career that he burned himself out, shrinking under a self-imposed pressure to achieve.

“I’d been shouldering it for so long that it just kind of came crashing down on me,” Tit said.

Things improved with the help of family and friends, and after making an effort to reengage with school and join extracurricular activities. As he did, he started to discover things about himself.

Tit is especially proud of his work to grow the high school’s Asian Student Union, which under his leadership has grown from five members to around 20.

He said for awhile he tried to push down his identity as an Asian-American, but now realizes, “I’m not one or the other, I’m both of them together, and I just had to figure that out.”

Tit lives on Mayo Street, where he helps look after his younger sister and grandmother. At school, he’s president of the chess club, and vice president of the executive board. He played soccer and ran track.

He’s known as a hard worker and a leader, but his experience with burnout also taught him to find a good balance. To unwind, he frequents the gym, plays video games with friends, and reads Manga.

He said a love and affinity for STEM fields shaped his decision to pursue engineering (he’s taken every computer science elective available at Portland High), and he hopes to use his career to help people rather than working exclusively for profit.

It may be lofty, but the goal is to “create meaningful and lasting change in the world,” he said.

With all those savings and a few scholarships, he’s off to a good start.

– Andrew Rice, Staff Writer

Cedar Worster

Oxford Hills High School

(Libby Kamrowski Kenny/Staff Photographer)

Cedar Worster felt compelled to do something when she heard classmates were upset about teachers not intervening in students’ homophobic behaviors.

Worster, then a freshman at Oxford Hills High School, started The CARE Team, short for Cultural Awareness and Respect in Education, with her classmates.

The group aims to help teachers and students contribute to changing the social environment at the school. They do that work through educational opportunities, like professional development workshops for teachers on how to effectively handle situations.

Now a senior, she’s is ready to pass the torch after running the program for four years.

“I honestly have noticed a difference,” said Worster. “I didn’t see many issues in the classroom beforehand, but I did notice a difference in the language in the hallway.”

Her leadership continues outside of the classroom as well. She’s one of two student members on the Maine State Board of Education where she can give her student perspective on policies, budgets and other school-related topics.

Because of her status on the state board, she serves as the chair of the Maine State Student Cabinet, a student council-type committee for the state. 

She’s also a three-sport athlete in cross country, outdoor track and skiing, and rock climbs in her free time.

“It takes a lot of coffee and late nights,” Worster said. “But it’s totally worth it.”

For college, she’s not straying too far from her hometown of Harrison. She’ll attend Bates College in Lewiston and is interested in studying pre-law or political science. For now, she’s undecided on a major.

“I love my school, my town and the people in it, but I’m also happy to be in an area that’s fresh and new to me,” she said. 

Before she graduates, Worster plans to leave behind her CARE Team tool kit that can be used by other high schools to create similar programs. 

– Emily Duggan, Staff Writer

Mandy Zhang

Waterville Senior High School

(Rich Abrahamson/Staff Photographer)

When she was 13, Mandy Zhang’s father left her hometown of Waterville to work out of state. Watching her mom take care of the household by herself, Zhang felt overwhelmed by the responsibility. 

At a loss for how to help and how to express herself, she started drawing flowers. Pretty soon she started bringing them to life. 

Zhang is headed to nearby Colby College as a QuestBridge Scholar, a program that matches students from low-income backgrounds with full scholarships to elite colleges. She’s been a club leader, a student ambassador, a cheerleader, a waitress and a camp counselor.

Ask her what she’s passionate about, and Zhang will mention flowers first. Making bouquets out of paper, yarn, real blooms or plastic is how she connects with people. She gives them as gifts to communicate what she can’t always say out loud. 

She has turned her passion into a business — selling corsages and boutonnieres for prom — but she loves offering a cheaper option to her peers and being creative in the process. 

Flowers are one outlet for Zhang; working with kids is another. It’s what brings her to her kindergarten teacher’s classroom as a helper every week, and keeps her going back to summer camp, as a counselor and an arts and crafts specialist. 

But like her floral side-hustle, working with kids is not a long-term goal for Zhang. She wants to study law. 

Zhang remembers feeling helpless as a child when her mom experienced legal troubles. It’s the driving force behind her ambition. 

“If she has a problem, I want to be literate and know what to do and how to conquer that,” Zhang said.

Zhang said her dedication to her family is part of her Chinese culture. She wanted to go to college near them, and is proud she can do it for free.

“They’ve been, just, always there for me,” she said. “(My dad) was saying, ‘I will literally take out as many loans to get you to go to college,’ and now he doesn’t have to.”

– Abigail Pritchard, Staff Writer

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