Community News

Teen of the Week: Marietta High School graduate Molly Graham eager to study sonography

MARIETTA – When she arrives in Columbus to begin her studies at Ohio State University, Molly Graham will focus her time and energy on two passions in her life. One is working with children as a pediatric sonographer and the other will be in cheerleading competition, continuing the cheerleading that had been part of her life for the past six years.

She is the daughter of Alecia and Shawn Graham of Marietta.

For the past five years Graham has been a Safetytown volunteer and is a recipient of the Rotary Club Foundation Scholarship for her work with the Safetytown program, a program that teaches children about important safety skills ranging from traffic and pedestrian safety to fire prevention and stranger awareness.

Graham said she got involved after watching her sister work with the program.

“I was a volunteer for Safetytown for five years,” she said. “I got started with that because I have an older sister who was also a volunteer for Safetytown and I watched her do it for a few years and I joined her while I was in middle-school and continued to do it through high-school as well.”

Graham was one of five volunteers.

“Typically we are in a group of five volunteers and a group of 20 to 30 students and each is in charge of a couple of kids, helping them when we are doing a craft or during a safety topic,” she said.

Graham said safety lessons cover a number of topics.

“We do things like memorizing their phone numbers or poisons safety and traffic safety,” she said. “We also have a police officer come to visit.”

Graham also was involved in a number of volunteer activities. At Marietta High School, where she was a cheerleader, such is part of a monthly community service event.

“We adopted a part of a highway.” she said. “That is the big thing we did, three to four times a year we cleaned up a highway, we donated food to our local food pantry a couple of times. We also did performances for our local county home as well.”

She also was a cheerleader at Marietta Middle School.

In addition to cheerleading, Graham is active in student council, serving as class vice president last year and was a member of the National Honor Society. She also was a member of the Junior National Honor Society in middle-school.

As a student, Graham said her best school subject was math.

This fall Graham plans to attend Ohio State University and major in health sciences.

“I am planning on being in their sonography program,” she said.

Sonography is a type of ultrasound, Graham said.

Graham said she decided on Ohio State after a visit to the campus. Ohio State has one of Ohio's four sonography programs.

“With only four programs that knocked down my options pretty quickly," she said. "I toured all the schools and I pretty quickly had it down to University of Findlay and Ohio State"

“After doing a visit to the department at Ohio State, I decided it was the best fit for me.”

While in high school she took several classes at Washington State College of Ohio.

“I took anatomy and physiology one and two and I took medical terminology,” she said.

Graham said with the classes she took she will probably be a sophomore at Ohio State.

“I knocked-a-year off college with those classes,” she said.

Graham first considered a future career in nursing.

“I thought of that at first like a lot of people do,” she said. “But I’m not a big fan of needles or anything like that, so I looked at other areas and sonography is what I came across.”

Graham said her work with the Safety Town program drew her toward helping children.

“I really enjoyed that, working with it for five years,” she said. “So I hope to work with pediatrics as well.

Graham said the pediatric sonography field would have her working in a children’s ward of a hospital or a children’s hospital," she said. “I would like to work closely with children."

There are two fields in sonography.

“There are two types, but I haven’t decided which one I’ll do yet,” she said. “I could either go into cardio, which deals with the heart, or I could do general. That is more like obstetrics or any general scanning because as a younger child I had some procedures done and I remember going to Nationwide Children’s Hospital and feeling very comfortable.”

Graham said she was attracted to sonography because she wanted to go into the medical field.

Graham said she is also looking forward to what the school has to offer outside the classroom.

"I got my football game package and I'm really excited about that. She is planning to continue her cheerleading at the university.

"I tried out for the competition cheerleading team," she said. "I just got on that so I'm very excited about that."

Graham said competition cheerleading team members are not the cheerleaders seen at a football game or basketball game. While many sideline cheer teams in high school and college have male members, the competition cheering teams are different, she said.

"It's all girls," she said.

"We will go to cheerleading competitions, the cheerleaders at the football and basketball games are a different group," she said. "We will represent Ohio State at cheer competitions."

Graham said gymnastics she had in grade school and being the member of a competition team at Marietta High School helped her make the team at OSU. In high school did sideline cheering in addition to the competition.

Contact Jeffrey Saulton at jsaulton@newsandsentinel.com