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The senior from tiny Houston High School will head to Cambridge, Mass., in the fall to study at the elite Ivy League school. From what people in the district recall, she’ll be the first Houston graduate to attend perhaps the nation’s most prestigious university.
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Morgan Lehmann, 18, a senior at Houston High School, does research for a paper Wednesday in her Advanced Placement Literature class, taught by her mom, Krin Abraham-Berg, left. Lehmann will be the the first Houston graduate to attend Harvard University as well as the first member of her family to go to an Ivy League school.
(Photo by Melissa Carlo/Winona Daily News) |
“Kids from here haven’t even really attempted to go to places like Harvard, because they never considered it was in the realm of possibility,” said Krin Abraham-Berg, Lehmann’s Advanced Placement English Literature teacher, who also happens to be her mother.
For Lehmann just about anything is possible.
She played softball, basketball and volleyball. She was on the student council. She plays in the band, is a member in the National Honor Society and was on the Houston Knowledge Bowl team.
But she’s yet to pick a major — perhaps law or writing.
“I’ll find out what I want to do at a college level,” she said.
For now, Lehmann is enduring a fair share of good-natured teasing from her classmates for her next lofty step. Lehmann is down to Earth about being an impending Ivy Leaguer and doesn’t let the ribbing get to her.
“If I say something stupid, they’ll tease me,” Lehmann said of her friends. “But it’s not like I suddenly gained all the knowledge in the world the minute I got into Harvard.”
Lehmann, who describes herself as the girl who always went to summer camp and didn’t want to come back, looks forward to a new independence. Her mother said she’ll have to resist the urge to grab her daughter’s ankles and hold on when she leaves for school.
“I am very proud of her,” Abraham-Berg said. “Harvard’s a long ways away, though.”
Lehmann said she wants to branch out and control her own life a little more — like many high school graduates — but will also miss Houston. “Not being close to home, not being able to come home for Thanksgiving, that’s the only thing I’m worried about,” Lehmann said.
When Lehmann graduates on June 5, she’ll be joined by only 21 others. Teachers and administrators in the district think that small class size has been a benefit for this year’s seniors, who have developed a tight bond over time.
With over half of the graduating class holding grade-point averages of 3.5 or above, they represent a group of students who have pressured themselves to excel, said Houston Principal Todd Lundberg.
“It’s a small class, and they push each other in a positive way,” Lundberg said. “They just seem to enjoy doing well in succeeding.”
