Graduation for one

Shyane Myers is the only graduate this year at Newburg High School

By ANDREA JOHNSON, Staff Writer ajohnson@minotdailynews.com
NEWBURG – Shyane Myers is the class valedictorian at Newburg United High School. She’s also in the middle and at the very bottom of the class ranking. Myers is the only graduate of the class of 2008.


It wasn’t always that way. There were two members of the class until last fall, when her only classmate decided to enroll at Glenburn High School for the sake of its drama program. Other classes at Newburg High have as many as seven or eight students.


She likes the one-on-one attention she gets in her classes, but said there are several drawbacks to being the only student in the senior class, like when she’s sitting all alone in a classroom and has no other students to talk to.


“I pretty much know my teachers really, really well,” said Myers.


Myers attended a much larger elementary school in upstate New York. She moved to North Dakota with her dad when she was in the sixth grade when her dad remarried. At first, going to such a small school was a major culture shock, said Myers, because the town was so small. It was a bit hard for her to make friends, too, said Myers, since all the kids in her school had already formed their cliques. But Myers said she isn’t shy and she has made friends from neighboring schools. She’s only dated one person in her school; other dates have to come from neighboring schools. She also goes back to visit her mom and sister in New York state.


Myers keeps pretty busy. She tutors first-graders, played varsity volleyball, was president of the school pep club and wrote for the school newspaper. She also works at a grocery store in Mohall, which means she puts a lot of miles on her car every day. This summer she’ll be working closer to home at the Cenex store in Newburg. She also works at the steakhouse in Maxbass.


Myers plans to attend Minot State University-Bottineau this fall and will major in elementary education.


“I love kids,” said Myers, who worked as a babysitter for her aunt for years and taught Bible lessons at her Lutheran church in Newburg. She wants to be a first-grade teacher. She said she would like to stay somewhere in North Dakota and stay close to her dad and brother. She doesn’t want to teach in a district quite as small as Newburg, though, but wouldn’t mind a town the size of Fargo.


She said her high school graduation later this month will be just like any other graduation, only a lot shorter. She expects about 100 people to attend, which means a lot of the town of Newburg will be showing up.  She’ll give the prayer and make the speech at graduation.


She promises to make it short.