A Foothills Composite graduate was so happy at this year’s graduation ceremony on June 18, she practically danced across the stage.
Actually, grad Carleigh MacLeod had danced the night away at a big stage the previous evening.
“I am a competitive dancer and this is my 12th year in dance,” said MacLeod, who dances at DanceTech in High River. “I dance everything under the sun – from ballet, jazz, hip-hop, tap, contemporary...”
MacLeod won the tap dance competition for 16 and over dancers at the Drive-In Dance Recitals at the Sunset Drive-in in High River, which was organized by Okotoks' Alberta Dance Academy.
She said she dances six to seven days a week – putting in more than 15 hours per week. And that kind of discipline has helped her in the classroom, where she finished with a 91 per cent average.
“Being persistent and setting goals for myself has been really important to overcome obstacles and in my athletic endeavours,” she said. “It has helped me stay motivated, especially during COVID.”
MacLeod, who lives in Okotoks, will attend Western University in London, Ont. in the fall, where she plans to study kinesiology.
It was some growing pains and sports that got her interested in kinesiology some five years ago.
“When I had my first physio appointment back when I was in the seventh grade (in Okotoks) I absolutely fell in love with rehabilitation and I want to help athletes like my physiotherapist did for me, that ultimately is my dream,” MacLeod said. “I think it was an overuse (knee) injury through my dance and my volleyball. It also could have been growing pains. In the seventh and eighth grade I think I grew a half-a-foot.”
The injury slowed her but it didn’t stop her passion for either extra-curricular activity.
She played for the Foothills Falcons JV girls volleyball team in Grade 10 and 11. She was looking forward to a solid senior year on the court, but COVID spiked her chances.
While extracurricular are important, the main goal for a student-athlete is ‘curriculars’ – academics.
Foothills Composite gave MacLeod the opportunity to explore and change after walking through the Falcons’ Nest as a Grade 10 student.
“The Comp has given me a lot of opportunities – academically, in middle school, I would be that English-social studies student because I excelled at those courses,” Macleod said. “When I got to high school, I became more math driven. I fell in love with the math and science aspect and that made it a lot easier to make my post-secondary decision.”
She credits her math teacher in Grade 10 and 11, Cynthia Tarasoff, for inspiring her to focus on numbers and calculus and not grammar and politics.
“Something about her teaching absolutely clicked for me,” MacLeod said. “Not only was her teaching easy to follow but when I was in Grade 11 and everything shut down because of COVID, we would spend a lot of time one-on-one because people were starting to lose motivation, they didn’t know what to do with the online learning.
“But she kept me pretty persistent with my learning. Not only did we connect on an academic level, but we connected on a personal level, which is nice. It increases your passion for learning and wanting to go to class… It made me want to go to class the next day.”
On the science side, she connected with former Comp teacher Chris Williams, who's been a stalwart hockey coach with the Okotoks Oilers Athletic Association.
“In Bio 20, there is a lot about learning your systems of the body, circulatory, digestive… there was a lot related to the field I am going into,” she said. “We talked about the different types of sports I was playing and he understood the injuries, the high-intensity of athletes. He was really passionate about what he was doing.”
She admits the past year has been difficult as Comp students have gone through periods of online learning and then offline learning due to COVID-19 cases.
But she feels it strengthened her resolve.
“It has been a lot of back and forth and the motivational level can drop really easily,” she said. “For me, COVID did kind of set me back.
“When we got back on May 3 after being shut down in April I was really happy. My hopes were high and I was ready… then on May 4 we got an email saying we were going home again.
“It seemed like everything was being thrown away again… then my dance got put online. It was hard but now everything is back, I am beyond happy.
“COVID has taught me to be more persistent with both school and athletics.”
