After serving her school and community, St. Mary’s Ryken’s senior interested in working in international development
Emilie Garrabrant, a graduating senior at St. Mary’s Ryken High School in Leonardtown, Maryland, has spent her high school years focused on academic achievement, cultural understanding and community service. The 17-year-old is the daughter of Jeslyn and Robert Garrabrant.
“My mother is Singaporean Chinese and my father is American, so I’ve had the pleasure of living at the crossroads of two distinct worlds,” Garrabrant said. She credits her multicultural upbringing and her parents’ encouragement with helping her develop a global perspective. Each year, they gave her $50 to spend at a used book fair, where she immersed herself in literature from around the world.
“I adventured aboard a spaceship with Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, became enraptured in the political scandals of the last Russian monarchy and witnessed the downfall of Nigerian tribes to colonization,” she said. “I realized history and experience shape people’s needs differently.”