Sara Vandenborn has spent her entire high school career at BCSS. When asked how she has matured in that time she said that when she was in Grade 8 she thought that she was going to be living on a farm and doing what her parents do. “Now going out from Grade 12 I am looking more for going into the workforce and more into business.”
She’s been involved in Spirit Club since Grade 9 and recommends it to others because it keeps you active within the school.
Outside of school she has been in 4-H from Grade 6 until this year. “That was really a great experience. It helped me in my public speaking (she won a first place at district speakoffs) and self-confidence,” she said.
She described her first year in the 4-H beef ring as a gong show.
“My steer had gotten out the night before so he knew where all the gates in the ring were. So in going through the ring he’d smashed me into the panels beside the barn. I lost most of the skin on my right hand from rope burns, so I learned to wear gloves.
“I got stepped on—so I learned to wear steel-toed boots.”
“The next year I went in I had a nice steer but they kept us going into the ring again and again and again and he just got more and more tired and it kept getting worse and worse and worse.”
The experience was one she learned from though because she took Top Herdsman in the 2013 Provincial Winter Fair.
This summer she hopes to return to a summer camp coordinator job she had at Big White last year. She said time management skills came in handy there. Other than that it was, “Making sure the kids were in order and that nobody was trying to kill each other.”
This September she is planning to go to Okanagan College for a business course. “I am not too sure how long I want to be there though. If that all goes through properly, I hope to be either managing a business that deals with animals or people or owning my own business that deals with people or animals—hopefully in 10 years. I don’t think I could be at a desk job. It would drive me nuts.”
Sara is quick to list her strengths as being comfortable in company, decent at getting a point across, creative, capable of making a good impression and being organized.
“When it’s not my own stuff,” she added with a laugh.
She mentioned the bus rides from Beaverdell as among the most memorable moments of her time at BCSS. “When you have a two and a half hour bus ride every day, it can be memorable.”
When asked about her work experience she said, “I have lived on a farm since forever, so I am always busy. When I was in 4-H we had to pay for our calves. So we cleaned pens, fed animals and packed water and whatever needed done.”